The quantification of nanometric precipitates in Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys has been performed by a series of experimental techniques. Especially in the AA7050 alloy, after ageing heat treatment, the particles responsible for the hardening become very thin. Typically, these precipitates of nanometric sizes are mainly characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which in this particular case, requires a very meticulous preparation. This study investigated a possible alternative quantification of the precipitates by atomic force microscopy (AFM) to complement the technique by TEM. For this, three conditions for heat treatment of an aged aluminium alloy AA7050 were therefore chosen to produce different density and sizes of precipitates. The experimental results showed that the AFM technique proved to be a valid qualitative tool and may complement the results obtained by TEM an exploratory analysis for the microstructures.
Aluminum alloys are the first chosen materials for aircraft structures since 1930 due to their high ratio between properties and density. Currently, aircraft industries use Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys, with T7451 temper, which it shows high strength, fatigue and corrosion resistance. The improvements properties are result from the η’ phase formation, MgZn2. The aim the present work is to propose an alternative route for ageing heat treatment at one AA7050 aluminum alloy, the manner which the formation of η’ phase particles at lower temperatures and longer periods of treatment is obtained. According to the literature, ageing treatments at low temperatures and longer periods optimize the usage of the solution atoms, favoring the growth and nucleation particles. As a result, there is an increase in the density of the particle improving the alloy properties. These improvements show a decrease up to 13% in the crack propagation rate for moderate ΔK levels, keeping the same levels of Vickers hardness but with decay of 12% of ultimate tensile strength.
The AA7050 aluminum alloy is widely used due to its low specific combined with high strength and toughness obtained from the heat treatment which involves solution treatment and ageing. It produces the mechanism of precipitation hardening of a thin phase and disperses. In this context, the present study to investigated three ageing treatments, their influence on fatigue crack growth. In order to find a better condition of precipitation of η' phase, which may increase resistance to fatigue crack growth of AA7050 aluminum alloy. The T614-65 condition was chosen as an alternative treatment in relation to T7451 and T6 conditions of current use in the industry. The fatigue crack growth rate results have shown that T614-65 fatigue strength were up to 14% higher than the shown for T7451 temper.
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