Microstructure and Yield Strength Evolution of Aluminum Alloys

Abstract

Aluminum alloys are light materials with high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion resistance, and excellent formability. Due to these advantages, they are widely used in many industrial applications such as fabrication of aeroplanes, automobiles, ships, and architectural structures. Many fabrication parameters, such as alloy composition, casting and solidification conditions, strain rate, and ageing conditions, strongly affect the microstructural features such as morphology of phases, solute-dislocation interactions, as well as size and volume fraction of strengthening precipitates, and therefore determine the mechanical properties especially yield strength. This chapter probes microstructural optimization of aluminum alloys and the relationship between their microstructures and yield strength, with emphases on recent progress in microstructural modification of Al-Si alloys, yield strength modeling of dynamic strain ageing in Al-Mg alloys, and modeling of precipitate strengthening in Al-Mg-Si(-Cu) alloys.