Experimental Study on Contact Heating Method in Solid Solution Process of Aluminum Alloy

Abstract

In this paper, the contact heating method was adopted to heat the aluminum alloy instead of furnace heating. During the process, the aluminum alloy sheet was placed in the preheated flat die under a certain press force for several seconds until the sheet reach the preset temperature. The heating curves were recorded by thermal couples buried in the heating die blocks. Microstructure after contact heating was observe by transmission electron microscope. The results show that sheet temperature rises quickly after the heating die closed and the temperature can reach 475 °C in 10 s which is much faster than furnace heating. Microstructure evolution confirms that solid solution is almost completed after contact heating.