Study of Heat Treated 2024 Aluminum Alloy Behavior in Simple Shear Extrusion Process

Abstract

Severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques are increasing their importance in the manufacturing of ultrafine grain structures of metallic alloys. Among them, simple shear extrusion (SSE) is an emerging technique that outperforms other SPD techniques for its more uniform strain distribution and low product waste. In the present study, the microstructure and mechanical properties of aluminum 2024 alloy processed by simple shear extrusion are studied. Along with performing SPD techniques on the sample, two heat treatment operations including annealing and quenching are applied based on a given schedule. Results show that the strength and hardness properties of the aluminum alloy after annealing, i.e. Anneal+SSE and Anneal+SSE+Quench are improved by about 34% and 53%, respectively. On the other hand, it is found that the impact energy is much reduced by performing this procedure. The hardness of the specimen subjected to SSE is highly improved; also, the hardness increases by the increase in pass number.