Achieving Ultra-High Strength of Al-Cu-Li Alloys by the Combination of High Pressure Torsion and Age-Hardening

The combined strengthening effects of high pressure torsion (HPT) and age hardening on a recently developed 3^rd generation Al-Cu-Li alloy was investigated. Solution treated samples were processed through HPT at room temperature, followed by low temperature artificial ageing (i.e. T4-HPT-AA). A micro-hardness of ~240 Hv was achieved on ageing at 110°C/60h after HPT. A further improvement in the hardness to ~260 Hv was accomplished by a pre-ageing 110°C/24h before HPT in combination with a post-HPT ageing process at 110°C for 180h (i.e. T6-HPT-AA). These novel multi-stage processes give rise to an increase in hardness by a factor of 2 as compared to the T4 condition (~120 Hv). After HPT the grain size was dramatically refined to the ultrafine-grained (UFG) structure, accompanied by a large amount of dislocations. No long-range ordered precipitates were observed after HPT and subsequent ageing treatments. Instead, atom probe tomography (APT) provided clear evidence that Cu-Mg co-clusters were homogeneously distributed in the matrix of T4 and T6 processed samples and they segregate strongly to the grain boundaries (GBs) during HPT. Further ageing treatment after HPT leads to the segregation of clusters to the dislocations. A strengthening model that incorporates dislocation hardening, grain boundary hardening, solid solution strengthening and a new short-range order strengthening mechanisms was used to predict the yield strength of the alloy. This model indicates that the combined effect due to all three types of Cu-Mg clusters (clustering in matrix, clustering at GBs and at dislocations) is dominant for the strength in all conditions.