The University of Queensland
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THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND Designing New Aluminium Alloy by Orthogonal Array Analysis Student Name: ZI XUAN, LIM Course Code: MECH4501 Supervisor: Prof. MING XING, ZHANG Submission date: 29th of MAY 2019 Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Abstract: The type of alloying elements and its respective percentages is important to the overall mechanical properties of aluminium alloy. The primary purpose of this thesis is designing new aluminium alloy which has better hardness compared to commercially available ones in the market. Constituents and weight of aluminium alloy will be determined by statistical modelling known as Taguchi’s Method Orthogonal Array. Aluminium alloys were casted by permanent mould casting and heat treated at optimum heat treatment temperature and time to achieve peak hardness. A total of 16 experimental runs was produced by orthogonal array modelling. This thesis will mostly document the result of experimental run 7, 8 and 9. Analysis of aluminium alloy will be done by Vickers Hardness Test and microstructure analysis under optical microscope. The results obtained from experimental run 7, 8 and 9 will be correlated with other experimental run result conducted by my teammates to determine the alloy which yields the highest hardness and alloying elements and percentage which will produce aluminium alloy with high hardness through orthogonal array analysis. Hardness result of each alloy mostly shows above average hardness compared to commercially available ones at 140 HV. The highest recorded hardness obtained is alloy 8 at 240 HV. Through analysis of result, it is established that alloys with silicon, nickel, copper and magnesium show the highest average hardness. For following iteration (future casting and research), a general optimum alloying percentage is given and with a general emphasis on these 4 alloying elements. For commercialisation though, more work must be done based on the findings and results of this thesis. Designing new alloys requires multiple iterations and usually can’t be done with one research. Future iteration recommendation includes optimising the casting process, heat treatment process and altering the alloying constituents based on the orthogonal analysis results. Page | i Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTIONS ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Historical Advancement and Motivation of Alloy Development .......................................... 2 2. OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................. 3 3. LITERATURE REVIEWS .......................................................................................................... 5 3.1 Aluminium Alloy Metallurgy, Alloy and Alloying Elements ............................................... 5 3.1.1 Aluminium Alloying Elements, Grain Refiner and Respective Effects.......................... 6 3.2 Modern Method to Design New Alloy ................................................................................ 10 3.2.1 Design Of Experiment(DOE) ........................................................................................ 11 3.2.2 Taguchi’s Method Orthogonal Array ............................................................................ 12 3.3 Casting Metal ....................................................................................................................... 15 3.3.1 Permanent Mould Casting and Justification.................................................................. 16 3.3.2 Aluminium Casting Fluidity ......................................................................................... 18 3.3.3 Cooling and Solidifications ........................................................................................... 19 3.4 Heat Treatment .................................................................................................................... 21 3.4.1 Solution Heat Treatment ............................................................................................... 21 3.4.2 Quenching ..................................................................................................................... 24 3.4.3 Age Hardening .............................................................................................................. 25 3.5 Microstructure of Aluminium Alloy and Microstructure Analysis ..................................... 27 3.5.1 Microstructure of Aluminium Alloy ............................................................................. 27 3.5.2 Microstructure Analysis ................................................................................................ 28 3.6 Hardness and Hardness Test ................................................................................................ 30 4. METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................... 33 4.1 Material and Preparation ...................................................................................................... 33 4.2 Constructing Orthogonal Array ........................................................................................... 33 4.3 Casting Process .................................................................................................................... 35 Page | ii 4.4 Methodology and Justification of Heat Treatment Process ................................................. 36 4.4.1 Solution Heat Treatment Process .................................................................................. 38 4.4.2 Age Hardening Process ................................................................................................. 39 4.5 Vickers’s Hardness Test Methodology ................................................................................ 39 4.6 Microstructure Analysis Methodology and Reasoning ....................................................... 40 4.7 Analysis by Orthogonal Array ............................................................................................. 41 5. RESULTS .................................................................................................................................. 42 5.1 Sample 7: Al-4Si-6Cu-2Mg-2Zn-0.6Mn-1Sn-2Ni-1Ti ....................................................... 42 5.1.1 Sample 7: Casted Alloy and Microstructure ................................................................. 42 5.1.2 Sample 7: Solution Treatment Results .......................................................................... 45 5.1.3 Sample 7 Aging Curve and Aged Hardness Results ..................................................... 46 5.2 Sample 8: Al-6Si-4Cu-4Mg-6Zn-0.2Mn-4Cr-6Ni-1Ti ........................................................ 48 5.2.1 Sample 8: Casted Alloy and Microstructure ................................................................. 48 5.2.2 Sample 8: Solution Treatment Results .......................................................................... 50 5.2.3 Sample 8: Aging Curve and Aged Hardness Results .................................................... 52 5.3 Sample 9: Al-4Cu-6Mg-4Zn-0.2Mn-4Ni-1Ti ...................................................................... 54 5.3.1 Sample 9: Casted Alloy and Microstructure ................................................................. 54 5.3.2 Sample 9: Solution Treatment Results .......................................................................... 57 5.3.3 Sample 9: Aging Curve and Aged Hardness Results .................................................... 58 5.4 Orthogonal Array Analysis Result ....................................................................................... 60 6. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................ 65 6.1 Future Research ................................................................................................................... 68 7. CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................................... 69 8. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 71 9. APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................... 79 Page | iii Table 1: Aluminium alloying element effect and details. [26] [27] [28] ........................................ 9 Table 2: Design of experiments and its area of factor. .................................................................. 12 Table 3: Steps to conducting Taguchi's orthogonal array. ............................................................ 14 Table 4: Details of semi-permanent and permanent mould casting. ............................................. 17 Table 5: Shows commonly used quenching media and description. [18] ..................................... 24 Table 6: Preparatory steps for microstructure analysis. [19] ......................................................... 28 Table 7: Details the advantages and disadvantages of Vickers pyramid hardness test. [10] ........ 32 Table 8: Allowable percentage of alloying to be added for to aluminium alloy. .......................... 33 Table 9: Shows all the factor level assigned to the columns. .......................................................