Characterization of the A6060 Al Alloy Mainly by Using the Micro-Hardness Vickers Test in Order to Optimize the Industrial Solutionizing Conditions of the As-Cast Billets

Natural Aging Effects on the Solutionizing Heat Treatment Process of the A6060 Al Alloy As-Cast Billets for Profile Production

“…Both micro-Vickers testing and metallographic image processing indicate that diffusion controlled aging and atomic movement take place at room temperature: 1) The micro-Vickers profiles for both holding time conditions are shifted to higher values at about 20% for the whole temperature range. Values at levels more than 50 VHN are very close to those ones of the extruded material of the initial work [1]. This is very important observation for our conclusions.…”

“…The whole experimental procedure is presented in [1]. We focused on the samples solutionized at the temperature interval between 530˚C and 580˚C and then cooled in air-fan (25˚C) after 70 and 80 min holding time at the set point.…”

“…In a recently published paper [1], we presented the results of an R & D program for handling the as-cast billets of an Al-Si-Mg A6060 alloy at the solutionizing heat treatment temperature. According to the data presented, a reduction of the solutionizing temperature from 585˚C to 540˚C was possible leading to substantial energy savings of the process without lowering the quality of the final commercial Al profiles.…”

“…We treated the material of our original work as an Al-MMC. We measured in [1] the strengthening of the Al matrix grains by micro-Vickers hardness testing and extended this type of measurements by using the same original samples (α = 15 mm cubes). This was done after 10 months of stockpiling in the lab.…”

Influence of Corrosion on Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of 3xxx, 5xxx, and 6xxx Series Aluminum Alloys

“…Aluminum alloys from the 6xxx series are included in the group of precipitation--hardened materials. It is possible that, as a result of the impact of increased temperature (50°C for 20 days) during the corrosion test, the precipitation of phases such as Mg 2 Si and Mg 5 Si 6 might have occurred [19,20].…”