TALAT Lecture 1201: Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material

TALAT Lecture 1201

Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material

23 pages, 26 figures (also available as overheads)

Basic Level

prepared by M H Jacobs *
Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Materials
The University of Birmingham, UK

Objectives

To provide an introduction to metallurgical concepts necessary to understand how structural
features of aluminium alloys are influenced by alloy composition, processing and heat
treatment, and the basic affects of these parameters on the mechanical properties, and hence
engineering applications, of the alloys. It is assumed that the reader has some elementary
knowledge of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Date of Issue: 1999
 EAA - European Aluminium Association

1201 Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering
Material

Contents (26 figures)

1201 Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material _____________________ 2

1201.01. Basic mechanical and physical properties__________________________________ 3
1201.01.01 Background _______________________________________________________________ 3
1201.01.02 Commercially pure aluminium ______________________________________________ 4

1201.02 Crystal structure and defects _____________________________________________ 6
1201.02.01 Crystals and atomic bonding __________________________________________________ 6
1201.02.02 Atomic structure of aluminium ______________________________________________ 8
1201.02.03 Crystal structures _________________________________________________________ 8
1201.02.04 Some comments on crystal structures of materials _______________________________ 9

1201.03 Plastic deformation, slip and dislocations in single crystals. __________________ 11
1201.03.01 Slip and dislocations _____________________________________________________ 11
1201.03.02 Other features and defects in aluminium single crystals.__________________________ 12
1201.03.03 Grain features of bulk aluminium and its alloys. ________________________________ 14
1201.03.04 Plastic deformation, recrystallisation and grain growth___________________________ 18
1201.03.05 Structural transformations in aluminium alloys_________________________________ 21

1201.04 References __________________________________________________________ 21

1201.05 List of Figures _________________________________________________________ 22

TALAT Lecture 1201 2

1201.01. Basic mechanical and physical properties

1201.01.01 Background

The chemical element aluminium (symbol Al) is a metal, which in its pure, bulk form is
relatively soft, light and abundant - 8.07% of the Earth’s crust compared, for example, with
the familiar metal iron at 5.06% (see TALAT 1101, Figure 1101.01.01). Only oxygen and
silicon (as sand) are more abundant in the Earth’s crust, and yet it was only a century ago that
aluminium was discovered as the most common of metals (see TALAT 1501.01; History and
production process of aluminium). We are all familiar with the bronze and iron ages that
considerably predate the discovery of aluminium - so why was aluminium so late in
appearing on the scene? The answer, as for the pre-historic copper and bronze ages (bronze is
a metallic mixture of copper and tin) and later iron and steel (a mixture of iron and a small
quantity of carbon), relates to man’s technological capability not only to extract the material
from the Earth’s crust but also to process the material into a useful product.

Man’s discoveries and exploitation of metals
- Copper Age to Bronze Age to Iron Age to Steel and finally Aluminium

Copper may be found as lumps in the ground. In pre-historic times, around 8,000 BC, it was discovered that copper may be
beaten cold into a useful tool (today we call this cold work hardening). Later, it was found that the use of fire to heat copper
it softened (today we call this annealing) and this made it easier to fashion into a tool and implements such as cups. Later
still, it was found that further addition of heat allowed the copper to melt (at 1,083.4°C), whereupon it can be cast into a
variety of useful shapes. However, as a fighting weapon, a copper knife, although much less brittle than flint, very rapidly
lost its cutting edge.

Tin also may be found in the ground. Around 2,000 BC it was discovered that if a mixture copper and tin (today we call this
an alloy) was melted and cast, the product - bronze - was much harder than pure copper. This remarkable discovery set the
pattern for the major progress in civilisation known as the Bronze Age.

Copper and tin are relatively scarce in the Earth’s crust compared with iron, which is abundant but in the form of iron oxide.
One cannot but wonder what inspired the discovery, around 1,000 BC that by heating iron ore together with charcoal
(carbon) gives metallic iron, and hence the birth of the Iron Age [the carbon combines preferentially with the oxygen from
the iron oxide - carbon dioxide gas is given off, leaving metallic iron]. Iron, and later steel (an iron alloy with a small
amount of carbon), became dominant as a structural material and today is still the most widely used metallic material
because of its high strength and relatively low cost - it is, however, heavy and very susceptible to corrosion (rusting).

Aluminium oxide is also very abundant in the Earth’s crust. However, the chemical affinity between aluminium and oxygen
is very much stronger than that between iron and oxygen. Consequently, aluminium as a metal was not discovered until
relatively recently and requires a large amount of energy to extract it from its ore.

The great affinity of oxygen for aluminium (which produces a chemical compound, alumina
Al2O3) means that the element aluminium is present in the Earth’s crust incorporated in a
mineral, Bauxite ore. The technical challenge at the end of the last century was to extract
aluminium metal from Bauxite. The solution - the “Hall – Héroult” process (see TALAT
1501.01) - was the development of an electrolytic process, which is still used today. A large
quantity of electricity is required, and it was the development of cheaper electricity
(particularly hydroelectric power) at the turn of the last century, that made the industrial
production of aluminium a commercial proposition. The incentive to recycle aluminium is
considerable because, compared with he energy required for primary electrolytic extraction,
only a few percent of that energy level is required to remelt scrap material. Nonetheless, as a
general rule, aluminium is more expensive than steel; hence, for a given application, the
selection of aluminium over steel (or any other competitive material) will rely upon one or


more of the many attributes of aluminium which make it a better choice for a particular
application. Lightness in weight, the characteristic to be readily formed into useful shapes,
good corrosion resistance, and high electrical and heat conductivities are just some of the
potentially valuable attributes.

1201.01.02 Commercially pure aluminium

Commercially pure aluminium is the product of the electrolytic cell process. It contains a low
level of impurities, usually much less than 1%. Commercially pure aluminium is light in
weight (2,700 kg.m-3 compared with iron at 7,870 kg.m-3) and melts at 660 °C.

A lump of aluminium that has been heated to just below the melting point and allowed to
cool slowly (annealed) is light in weight, is not very strong, is soft and ductile, is corrosion
resistant and has high thermal and electrical conductivities - see Figure 1201.01.01 for data.
If the lump is mechanically deformed at room temperature, then it becomes noticeably harder
and less ductile - the material has been “work hardened”; the mechanism of work hardening
will be explained later in this section. The mechanical and physical properties of
commercially pure aluminium may be also be changed by deliberate additions of other
elements, for example, copper (Cu), magnesium (Mg), silicon (Si) - the products are alloys
and the aim of industrially useful alloys is to enhance their properties and hence make them
more suitable for fabrication into useful products. Again, the mechanisms involved will be
the subject of much discussion later in this chapter. Such alloy additions are small in amount
(typically up to a few percent); consequently they have only a very small effect on the
density, which remains low at typically 2800 kg.m-3. An exception is additions lithium (Li),
density 540kg.m-3, of up to a few percent and specially developed for aerospace applications,
where the aluminium-lithium alloy density is lower at 2200-2700 kg.m-3. Also, alloys of
aluminium with small additions of lithium are stiffer than other aluminium alloys, which is a
feature of benefit to some applications (see section on aerospace alloys, TALAT lecture
1255).


The extremely strong affinity of aluminium for oxygen means that, at room temperature in
normal air conditions, a lump of aluminium will instantaneously form a very thin layer of
surface oxide. This is only a few atom layers thick; however, it is very stable and provides
good protection against chemical attack.

The surface oxide film formed at room temperature is amorphous (this means that the
component atoms are not arranged in a regular array). Upon heating to elevated temperature,
say around 550 °C, the amorphous film starts to crystallise - small regions of aluminium
oxide re-arrange their atoms into a more stable, regular arrangement - small crystals are
formed. Stripping of the films allows them to be examined at very high magnification in a
transmission electron microscope (see later section on metallographic techniques); this
allows the structure of the films to be determined - Figure 1201.01.02. The small aluminium
oxide crystals formed at an elevated temperature are of a size and separation to cause optical
interference effects (diffraction) in normal white light - thus, such a sample may appear
bluish through brown to black, as opposed to the familiar reflective “silvery” colour of
aluminium.

Aluminium oxide (also called alumina) is a brittle, ceramic material that has a very high
melting point of 1,773 °C. This means that when a lump of aluminium is melted, the
alumina film remains solid and, unless special measures are adopted, it breaks up and,
because of turbulence in the liquid, readily becomes incorporated inside the liquid where it
remains during subsequent freezing (solidification). The alumina films are folded back on
them-selves and are poorly bonded and, as such, present regions of weakness in the solidified
aluminium. Unless special precautions are adopted, entrapped oxide films can be a serious
problem in components cast from aluminium alloys - see TALAT lecture 3202 (Figure
3202.00.01).


1201.02 Crystal structure and defects

1201.02.01 Crystals and atomic bonding

Aluminium is a metallic material, composed of atoms which are arranged in a specific three-
dimensional array - a crystal. The way in which the atoms of all materials are bonded is
determined by their atomic structure. The box below provides brief descriptions of various
types of bonding and some simple crystal structures.

Atoms, bonding and crystal structures

Most solid matter is crystalline. The atoms of which it is composed form a regular pattern which is repeated throughout
space; this is the crystal structure. Since solid matter has strength, it is clear that there must be a force, the atomic bond,
holding each atom to its neighbours in the crystal. Bonding is of three basic types: Metallic bonding;
Covalent bonding and Ionic bonding. Let us look at the characteristics of each in turn.

Metallic bonding
In metallic bonding, an electron is lost by one type of atom and gained by another. Electrons carry a negative charge. An
atom will lose one or more atoms if it has this number in its outer shell; this is the chemical definition of a metal.

Suppose some metal atoms are brought together, each having spare electrons in their outer shells. What holds them
together ? Again it is a matter of sharing but not one atom with another but more on a communal basis ! The way a metal is
best viewed is of a system of positive charges or ions (the atoms which have lost electrons ...... so-called positive ions)
surrounded by a cloud of negatively-charged electrons - sometimes called ‘electron-gas’ - see Figure 1201.02.01 - which
shows pictorially metallic bonding with positive ions surrounded by an ‘electron-gas’. The mutual attraction between the
positively charged ions and negative ‘electron-gas’ provides the bond.

The free electrons in the “electron gas” of a metal are relatively free to move. Under the influence of a voltage potential, an
electron current flows. Hence, metals are good conductors of electricity.

It is important to note that mixtures of metallic atoms occur commonly - these are known as alloys. There are many
different alloys of aluminium. There are also a number of different classes of aluminium alloy; these will be discussed later
in this lecture series. In all cases of metallic alloys, the simple picture of positive metal ions in an electron gas holds true.
The positive metal ions may assemble into special arrays as a result of a particular heat treatment or special mechanical
treatment - this gives rise to crystal structures with special features , for example grain structures and more general
microstrucures; we will look at these features later in this lecture.


Covalent bonding
Electron shells can be made complete by sharing electrons. Carbon is an example; this has 4 electrons in the outer shell and
shares these to make the stable shell of 8.

The diamond structure of carbon is shown in Figure 1201.02.02. This shows a three dimensional representation with the
bonds shown as the region of high electron probability . The strength of the covalent bonds is what accounts for the great
hardness of diamond. atoms. The strong bonding of the electrons also means that there are no free electrons to carry an
electrical current: diamond is an electrical insulator.

Mixtures of atoms - compounds - can have covalent bonds. Organic materials are mostly covalently bonded, e.g. plastics,
which are mostly good electrical insulators.

Ionic bonding
Non-metals, in contrast, have almost full outer electron shells and become more stable by gaining one or more electrons.
Consider sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl) - see Figure 1201.02.03. As electrons carry a negative charge the Na atom
becomes positively charged and the Cl negatively charged. Opposite charges attract and this is the basis of the bond - in this
case producing NaCl, common salt.


1201.02.02 Atomic structure of aluminium

Let us return to the specific case of aluminium. The atomic number of an aluminium atom is
13; by definition this is because it has 13 protons in its nucleus, together with 14 neutrons.
The atomic structure is shown pictorially in Figure 1201.02.04. The outer electron shell - the
valancy shell - contains three electrons; these contribute to the “free electron gas” of
aluminium crystals and give such crystals excellent electrical conductivity. As a general rule,
the electrical conductivity is reduced by the addition to aluminium of impurities and by the
deliberate addition of other elements to form aluminium alloys.

1201.02.03 Crystal structures

As already indicated above, aluminium atoms assemble into an array to form a crystal lattice.
The crystal lattice has a face-centred cubic structure (often abbreviated to fcc). Aluminium,
in common with most other metals and their alloys, pack atoms together in a highly
compacted way - mostly, this is achieved by one of three different lattices, face-centred
cubic, close-packed hexagonal or body-centred cubic - see Figure 1201.02.05.


1201.02.04 Some comments on crystal structures of materials

As we saw above, covalently-bonded materials must have their atoms arranged to allow
electron sharing; this leads to some very complicated structures - for example, plastic
polymers and bio-medical materials. Ionic crystals have, as their priority, the requirement
that positive and negatively charged particles are neighbours.

The metallic bond, however, makes no such demands and, as a result, the atoms can pack
together in the most efficient way. This leads to close-packed structures of which there are
two types, face-centred cubic (fcc) and close-packed hexagonal (cph), Figure 1201.02.05.
Another common structure is body centred cubic (bcc) , which is also illustrated in Figure
1201.02.05.


Although the fcc and cph look very different, they are, in fact, both made up by stacking
close-packed layers, one on top of another. This is illustrated in Figure 1201.02.06.
Probably a rather simpler picture is to consider rafts of close-packed atoms, which may be
stacked on top of each other. These rafts may be stacked in two distinctly different sequences,
ABCABC and ABABAB (or ACACAC) , as illustrated in Figure 1201.02.07; the former is
fcc stacking, and the latter is hcp. [This is readily demonstrated with small spheres, e.g. rafts
of glued table tennis balls].

The slip of one raft of atoms over a neighbouring raft is the mechanism by which a crystal
can change its shape - that is, by the application of a sufficient force to a crystal, it responds
by changing its shape. This is known as plastic deformation. The plane on which the slip
occurs is determined by the geometry of the crystal structure. The geometry involved is
relatively simple for crystals based on cubic symmetry, for which crystal planes and crystal
directions may be defined in terms of Miller indices, see box below.

Miller indices

Three axes, x, y and z, are defined which are parallel to the edges of a cube whose cell edges are of unit length - see Figure
1201.02.08. The convention to define a crystal plane is as follows:-
1. Determine the intercept of the plane along the three axes x, y and z..
2. Take the reciprocal of each intercept.
3. The three resulting numbers are the Miller indices of the plane.

As an example, consider one of the faces of the cube shown in Figure 1201.02.08. The intercepts are
1 along the x-axis
infinity along the y axes
infinity along the z axis.

Take the reciprocal of each intercept to obtain the integers 1, 0 and 0.

The convention is to enclose these integers in brackets - (100) - to define the plane, again see Figure 1201.02.08. Clearly,
other faces of the cube will be represented by (010). (001) and so on. Such a family of planes id denoted by {100}.

Note that the close-packed planes are {111}, and these are the slip planes.


Directions in the cubic crystal are defined in ‘square brackets’ as the normals to the planes; for example, the direction along
the x- axis is [100]. A family of equivalent ‘cube’ directions is denoted as <100>.

1201.03 Plastic deformation, slip and dislocations in single crystals.

1201.03.01 Slip and dislocations

Deformation by slip in aluminium mostly occurs on {111} planes and along <110>
directions. In practice, the energy that would be required to move a complete raft of close-
packed atoms all in one go would be impossibly large, and this never happens. Instead, slip
occurs by the movement of so-called line defects in the crystal, known as dislocations. The
science of dislocations is a huge and complicated subject, so for details the interested reader
is referred to specialised texts [1]. Nonetheless, the basic principle of slip by dislocation
movement is easy to illustrate by reference to a so-called ‘edge dislocation’. The
arrangement of atoms is shown in Figure 1201.03.01. The dislocation line is the boundary of
an extra plane of atoms. Slip occurs by the movement of this extra plane along the slip plane;
hence, deformation is a localised process and the energy required is very much less. Note,
however, the very localised distortion of the atomic lattice around the dislocation; the lattice
is said to be in a state of strain, with some atoms further apart than normal, and some atoms
closer than normal.

In practice, any macroscopic shape change requires movement of very large numbers of
dislocations. However, because dislocation movement in a pure aluminium crystal requires
only a small energy, macroscopic deformation is relatively easy - we perceive the material to
be soft.


1201.03.02 Other features and defects in aluminium single crystals.

In the real world, very high purity aluminium is a rarity; normally aluminium material
contains at least a small amount of impurities and, for most engineering applications, the
material contains deliberate additions of alloying elements. The main impurities in
commercially- pure aluminium are iron and silicon. Iron has a very low solubility in
aluminium (0.05wt% maximum at 665°C), hence an impurity level higher than this results in
particles of aluminium-iron intermetallic which are insoluble. Some elements, notably
copper (Cu), lithium (Li), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn) , silicon (Si) and zinc (Zn)
dissolve, each up to a certain limit which is temperature dependent, in the aluminium lattice
.... they form so-called solid solutions .... see Figure 1201.03.02.


In a solid solution, the ‘foreign’ atom substitutes for an aluminium atom - see Figure
1201.03.03. These foreign atoms are known as solute atoms; they have atom sizes that are
different from the atom size of aluminium (see Figure 1201.03.02). This means that solute
atoms introduce a distortion into the aluminium lattice - see Figure 1201.03.03- a feature that
has a controlling influence on how the solid solution - the alloy - responds to heat treatment
and to mechanical working; we will return to the important feature later in this chapter. Some
lattice sites are not occupied by any atom - the sites are vacant. The point defect caused by
the vacant lattice site is called a vacancy. The equilibrium concentration of vacancies is very
temperature dependent. The concentration of single vacancies, Cv , in equilibrium in a pure
metal at a temperature T°K is given by [2]

Cv = c o n s ta n t x e x p  − E f 
 
 kT

where Ef is the energy of formation of a single vacancy and k is Boltzmann’s constant. The
equilibrium concentration varies [3] from about 2 x 10-3 / atom (i.e. 2 lattice sites in every
1,000) at just below the melting point, to 1 x 10-12 / atom (i.e. 1 lattice site in 1,
000,000,000,000 at room temperature). However, if a sample of aluminium is cooled rapidly,
a high, non-equilibrium level of vacancies can be retained in the structure; this has important
implications to the metallurgy of aluminium alloys - we will return to this when we discuss
the mechanism of precipitation hardening in section 1201.04.

Vacancies are also important because they facilitate the mechanism of the diffusion of solute
atoms in an aluminium alloy lattice - see Figure 1201.03.04. In the illustration, the small
solute atom diffuses upwards, and the large solute atom diffuses downwards.


1201.03.03 Grain features of bulk aluminium and its alloys.

Although it is possible by special procedures to grow large single crystals of pure aluminium
and aluminium solid solutions, in most situations where aluminium is processed and applied
as an engineering material, the bulk material (as with other engineering materials) is
composed of an agglomeration of a large number of crystals, so-called grains - so next, we
must look at the formation and characteristics of multi-grained materials.

Let us start by considering the freezing (solidification) of an aluminium alloy. As the liquid
cools to, and then below, the freezing point, small crystals of solid start to grow within the
liquid. The solid crystal grows at different rates in different lattice directions - in aluminium,
as for all fcc metals, the preferred growth directions are the cube <100> directions, and the


crystal takes on a characteristic, so-called ‘dendritic’ morphology; branching takes place, to
produce crystals as illustrated in Figure 1201.03.05. If the liquid contains dissolved solute
atoms which, as a general rule will be either smaller or larger than the aluminium atoms,
these solute atoms will not easily fit into the growing crystal and are therefore rejected into
the surrounding liquid - the solute atoms are microsegregated into the inter-dendritic
regions, Figure 1201.03.06. Hence, the solid formed is not uniform in composition, but is
microsegregated on a scale determined by the sizes of the dendrites. The sizes of the
dendrites are controlled by the conditions of freezing, that is, by the method by which the
bulk material is cast.

Figure 1201.03.07 shows the arrangement for vertical, direct chill (DC) cast of aluminium
alloys - a variant of this produces horizontal cast bars [4]. Liquid aluminium alloy is poured
into a water-cooled mould. The liquid starts to solidify - the mixture of solid dendrites and
solute-enriched liquid is known as the ‘mushy zone’. Solid aluminium alloy is withdrawn
downwards on a vertical hydraulic ram. Metallurgically important processes occur within the
cooling liquid and in the mushy zone - Figure 1201.03.08. A steep temperature gradient
from the surface of the water-cooled mould extends inwards to the centre-line. This sets up
buoyancy-driven convection currents that cause dendrites to flow downwards, along the
region in the vicinity of the mushy zone and the liquid - the interface between the 100%
liquid and the mushy zone is called the ‘liquidus’ surface, and the interface between the
mushy zone and the 100% solid is called the ‘solidus’ surface. This flow of dendrites,
coupled with the fact that dendrites will grow preferentially parallel to the temperature
gradients leads to elongated crystal grains growing towards the centre line; also solute atoms
get redistributed over large distances, which leads to macrosegregation. Sometimes an
electromagnetic coil is placed around the mould, which induces eddy currents in the liquid
and tends to counter the buoyancy flow. Also, it is common practice in industry to add an
inoculant, whose purpose is appreciably to increase the nucleation of dendrites, and so reduce
the scales of microsegregation and macrosegregation.


Grain refinement of aluminium [4].

Because uniformity of grain size and chemical composition is so desirable - this produces a consistent, uniform
engineering product of isotropic properties - it is usual to add small amounts of an inoculant of Al-Ti or Al-Ti-B
to the melt in order to promote refinement. Two theories have been advanced to explain the mechanism of grain
refinement: (1) small particles of either TiC or TiB2 are added to the melt and these act as seeds for dendrite
grow; and (2), as so-called peritectic reaction, as follows:

Liquid aluminium + TiAl3 reacts and goes to α- alloy solid solution.
Dendrites grow from the TiAl3 coated with solid solution.

Fully solid cast material consists of colonies of dendrites, separated by grain boundaries. The
grains are microsegregated, Figure 1201.03.09. Heat treatment of the solid at a temperature
just below the melting point (homogenisation) allows concentration gradients in the solute
compositions to even out by diffusion, and grains of uniform composition are formed, Figure


1201.03.10.

The boundaries between grains are in a state of local, high disorder and are of higher energy
relative to the regular lattice of grain interiors. Thermodynamic principles say that systems
always tend to minimise their total energy; consequently, a sustained annealing treatment
leads to growth of grains to lower the total grain boundary area. This same principle is the
main driver that determines how a material responds to deformation (working) and further
heat treatments.


1201.03.04 Plastic deformation, recrystallisation and grain growth

Let us take as our starting point a slab of commercially pure aluminium that has been fully
annealed and homogenised, with a relatively large grain size - say of the order of a
millimetre, see (a) in Figure 1201.03.11. The grains are reasonably uniform in size (equi-
axed) and of low dislocation density; hence, the material is soft and easily deformed. If the
material is mechanically worked at room temperature, it hardens noticeably - this is called
work hardening. The plastic deformation creates a multitude of dislocations, Figure
1201.03.11, whose ability to slip becomes progressively more difficult because of resistance
from neighbouring dislocations - macroscopically the material becomes ‘hard’.

Recovery. If the temperature of the slab is now raised to around 250°C, the
dislocations will form a network structure of cells (polygonisation), Figure 1201.03.12. The
process is called recovery and the material will start to soften slightly.


Recrystallisation. If the temperature of the slab is raised further, new strain free crystals
are nucleated; recrystallisation has commenced, Figure 1201.03.12. and the material starts to
soften. This process continues until the whole of the material has recrystallised and softened,
Figure 1201.03.13.

Primary and secondary grain growth. If a fully recrystallised material is held at elevated
temperature for a period of time, then the grains grow, Figure 1201.03.14. Initially the
growth is reasonably uniform but later, a small number of grains grow preferentially and
abnormal grain growth sets in, Figure 1201.03.14.


Texture. Plastic deformation of aluminium normally occurs by slip on {111} planes in
<110> directions.

Aluminium wire and extruded bar have a ‘fibre’ texture[4], with <110> directions parallel to
the axis of the wire and extrusion, Figure 1201.03.15. The texture of rolled sheet is more
complicated [4], with <112> parallel to the rolling direction and certain preferred grain
orientations, Figure 1201.03.16.


1201.03.05 Structural transformations in aluminium alloys

In contrast to pure aluminium, aluminium alloys contain solute additions which can markedly
effect grain structures and particularly the microstructures within the grains, Figure
1201.03.16. This in turn strongly influences the responses of alloys to working and heat
treatment. Both crystal structure and microstructure influence mechanical properties. Slip is
inhibited by grain boundaries, which are disordered regions, (and so small grains improve
strength). Slip can also be made difficult by dispersing particles of another phase throughout
the matrix. To understand the metallurgy of this we must first look at methods by which the
structures can be investigated (Metallography of Aluminium Alloys, TALAT lecture
1202), then we must see how the structures present (phases) depend upon composition and
temperature (Phase Diagrams, TALAT lecture 1203). This will then lead us on to the very
important subject of Precipitation Hardening, which will be treated in TALAT lecture
1204.

1201.04 References

1. R E Smallman, Modern Physical Metallurgy, Fourth Edition, Butterworth -
Heinemann Ltd., 1992, chapter 6.
2. B Chalmers, Physical Metallurgy, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1959, pp 93.
3. L E Mondolfo, Aluminium Alloys - Structure and Properties, Butterworths, 1976,
pp.22-23.
4. I J , Light Alloys - Metallurgy of the Light Metals, Metallurgy and Materials
Sciences Series, Edward Arnold, 2nd Edition 1989, p55.
5. F J Humphreys and M Hatherly, Recrystallization and Related Annealing
Phenomena,
Pergamon, 1995.


1201.05 List of Figures

Figure Nr. Figure Title (Overhead)
1201.01.01 Some characteristics of pure Aluminium
1201.01.02 Aluminium oxide films extracted chemically and then examined at high
magnification in a TEM
1201.02.01 Metallic Bonding
1201.02.02 Covalent bonding of diamond carbon
1201.02.03 Ionic Bonding – Example of NaCl
1201.02.04 Metallic Aluminium: Atomic structure and bonding
1201.02.05 Crystal Structures
1201.02.06 Close-packed planes of face-centred cubic (fcc) and hexagonal close-
packed (hcp) lattices
1201.02.07 Stacking of Atoms in close-packed regions
1201.02.08 Miller indices for a cubic crystal
1201.03.01 Slip of edge dislocation
1201.03.02 Solubilities of elements in aluminium
Estimates of atom sizes
1201.03.03 Point and line defects in crystals
1201.03.04 Solute/ Vacancy diffusion
1201.03.05 Dendrites in cast Al-Si-Mg alloy
1201.03.06 Coring of Aluminium dendrites
1201.03.07 Direct Chill (DC) casting
1201.03.08 Buoyancy flow and electro-magnetic stirring
1201.03.09 Microsegregated grains and grain boundaries
1201.03.10 Homogenised grain structure
1201.03.11 Grain structure (a) Annealed, (b) Deformed
1201.03.12 Grain structure ( c) recovered, (d) start of recrystallisation
1201.03.13 Grain structure (e) advanced recrystallisation, (f) fully recrystallised
1201.03.14 Grain structure (g) normal grain growth, (h) abnormal grain growth
1201.03.15 Textures in aluminium extrusion and rolled products
1201.03.16 Schematic microstructure of an aluminium alloy


TALAT Lecture 1201: Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material

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TALAT Lecture 1201: Introduction to Aluminium as an Engineering Material