| Summary: | A model has been developed to predict the yield stress of the aluminum alloy AA6111
after multi-step heat treatments which involve combinations of ambient temperature
ageing and high temperature artificial ageing. The model framework follows the internal state variable framework where the two principal state variables are i) the volume fraction of clusters which form at ambient temperature and ii) the volume fraction of metastable phases which form during high temperature ageing. The evolution of the these state variables has modeled using a set of coupled differential equations. The mechanical response (the yield stress) is then formulated in terms of the state variables through an appropriate flow stress addition law. To test the model predictions a series of experiments were conducted which examined two scenarios for multi-step heat treatments. In general, good agreement was observed between the model predictions and the experimental results. However, for the case where a short thermal excursion at 250oC was applied immediately after the solution treatment, the results were not satisfactory. This can be understood in terms of the importance of the temperature dependence for the nucleation density of metastable precipitates.
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