HEATTREATMENTOFALUMINIUM

ShubhamMaheshwari130103072
P.KarthikeyaSharma130103052
ManishHaloi130103044
P.SravanKumar130103050
GunajitDas
130103034
YogeshMittal130103080

Literaryterms:

Aluminium,Annealing,Heattreatment,Hardness,Quenching,VickersHardness
test,Recovery,Recrystallization,Nucleation,Graingrowth,Microstructure,Normalising.

Objectives:

Toinvestigatetheconventionalheattreatmentprocedures,suchasquenchingand
annealing,usedtoalterthepropertiesofaluminium.
Tostudytheeffectsofheattreatmentonthemicrostructureandmechanicalproperties
ofaluminumimpactstrengthandhardnesswillbemeasuredforheattreated
specimens.
Toquantitativelyevaluatethehardenability,ordepthofhardness,ofanaluminiumrod
throughapplicationofthestandardVickershardnesstest.

Abstract:

Aluminium and its alloy is commonly used in the ships and boats in the
marine environment and susceptible to corrosion when they are run at high speedvelocityand
high flow rate condition.Heat treatment processes for aluminium are precision processes. The
basic motive behind this experiment is to optimize the mechanical properties such as strength
and hardness of the material. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of heat
treatment by quenching and annealing in different media like water, air, oil, sand and furnace
cooling in the temperature range between 350400
C depending on the medium used.
Aluminium bar is used as a material for the experiment.The objective of this study is to
investigate the hardnessofaluminiumafterquenchingindifferentmedia.Themicrostructuresof
heat treated specimens have been observed using metallurgical microscope and scanning
electronmicroscopewhilethehardnesstesthasbeendoneusingVickersHardnessTester.The

specimen heated at 350

C and quenched inwatergave thehighestvalueof75.50in hardness
(HRC).

Background:

Aluminium is a very soft metal.So,for its structural application,therefore it is usually

alloyed with several materials to improve its corrosion resistance,inhibit grain growth and to
increase its strength.
The properties ofaluminium include:lowdensityandthereforelowweight,
high strength, superior malleability, easy machining, excellent corrosion resistance and good
thermal and electrical conductivity are amongst aluminium's most important properties.
Aluminium is also very easy to recycle.The optimum strength of aluminium can beachievedby
alloying and heat treatment processes.Alloying is a way in which two or more metals/elements
canbecombinedtoformahomogenousstructure.

Heat treatment is a combination of timed heating and cooling operations appliedtoa

metal or alloy in the solid state in such ways as to produce certainmicrostructuresanddesired

properties. It is an important operation in the final fabrication process of any engineering
component to optimise its properties like hardness,ductility etc.Generally, heat treatment uses
phase transformation during heating and cooling to change a microstructure in a solid state.In
heat treatment, the processing is most often entirely thermal and modifies only structure.
Thermomechanical treatments, which modify component shape and structure, and
thermochemical treatments which modify surface chemistry and structure, are also important
processing approaches which fall into the domain of heat treatment.Annealing,Normalizing,
QuenchHardening,Tempering,andAustemperingaresomeofthegeneralheattreatments
oftenusedtomodifythemicrostructureandpropertiesofmetalalloys.

Hardness testing:

Hardnesstestsmeasuretheresistancetopenetrationofthesurfaceofamaterialbyahard
object.Thedepthofpenetrationismeasuredbythetestingmachineandconvertedtoa
hardnessnumber.WeusedVickershardnesstesttomeasurethehardness.

Vickers Hardness Test:

TheVickershardnesstestwasdevelopedasanalternativeto the
Brinellmethod tomeasurethe
hardness of materials. The unit of hardness given by the test is known as the Vickers Pyramid
Number (HV) or Diamond Pyramid Hardness (DPH). The hardness number can be converted
intounitsof

pascals.

It had been established that the ideal size of a

Brinell impression was 3/8 of the ball diameter.
As two tangents tothecircleatthe endsof achord3
d
/8longintersectat136,itwasdecidedto
use this as the included angle of the indenter, giving an angle to the horizontal planeof22on
eachside.Adiamondintheformofasquarebasedpyramidisusedastheindenter.

The angle was varied experimentally and it was found that the hardness value obtained on a
homogeneous piece of material remained constant, irrespective of load.
Accordingly, loads of
various magnitudes are applied to a flat surface, depending on the hardness of the material to
be measured. The HV number is then determined by the ratio
F/A
, where
Fistheforceapplied
to the diamond in kilogramsforce and
A is the surface area of the resulting indentation in
squaremillimeters.
A
canbedeterminedbytheformula.

whichcanbeapproximatedbyevaluatingthesinetermtogive

where
d
istheaveragelengthofthediagonalleftbytheindenterinmillimeters.Hence,

,
where
F
isinkgfand
d
isinmillimeters.
The corresponding units of HV are then kilogramsforce per square millimeter (kgf/mm). To
calculateVickershardnessnumberusingSIunits,thefollowingequationcanbeused:

where
F
isinNand
d
isinmillimeters.Here,HVisinGPaandshouldberoughlybetween015
GPa.

Apparatus:

HighTemperatureOven
HeatResistantGloves
HeatResistantFaceMask
AnAluminiumBar

OvenTongsforRemovaloftheAluminiumBarfromtheOven
CookingGradeMustardOil
AJarOfSand
o
ControllableFlowWaterSourceofRoomTemperature(24
C)Water
CoolingFurnace

 DoubleDiscPolishingMachine

VickersMicrohardnessTesterMachine

Experimentalprocedure:

Weusedanaluminiumbarasourprojectmaterialanddivideditinto6piecesby
hacksawfollowedbyfilingthemindividually.
Placeallthefivespecimensinafurnaceandsubjectittoheatingatanelevated
temperaturebetween350400
Cfor1hour
.Allowadequatetimeforthecrucibletoheat
tothetemperatureofthefurnace(about10minutes).Atotalof1hourheatingtime
shouldbeadequateallowingroughly4550minutesofheating.

ormalizing
N
Rapidlyremovefirstspecimenandallowittocoolinairuntilitreachesthe
roomtemperature.

Quench Hardening
Rapidlyremovesecondspecimenandquenchtheminwaterat
roomtemperature.

Annealing
Allowthethirdspecimentocoolinthefurnaceitselfafterswitchingthe
powertothefurnaceoff.Whenthetemperatureofthefurnacedropstobetween650
600C,removethespecimen.

Oil Quenching
Removethefourthspecimenfromthefurnaceandquenchitinanoil
mediumtillroomtemperature.

Quenching in sand medium

Removethefifthspecimenfromthefurnaceandquenchitin
thesandmediumtoroomtemperature.

Polishing

PolishallthequenchedspecimensonaDoubleDiscPolishingMachineusing
sandpapersofdecreasingroughnessvaluesundercontinuousstreamofwater.Usean
optimumrotationspeedofdisctobe20rotationsperminute.

Determination of hardness
Developadatasheetthatdeterminesthevickershardness
foreachoftheheattreatedspecimensafterpolishing.Followingarethestepsinvolved
indeterminingthehardnessvalues:

Adjustandfocusthelensofthetestingmachineontothesurfaceofthespecimen.
Indentonthesurfaceofthespecimenafterorientingit.
Theindenterispressedintothesamplebyanaccuratelycontrolledtestforce.
Theforceismaintainedforaspecificdwelltime,normally1015seconds.
Afterthedwelltimeiscomplete,theindenterisremovedleavinganindentinthesample
thatappearssquareshapedonthesurface.
Thesizeoftheindentisdeterminedopticallybymeasuringthetwodiagonalsofthe
squareindent.
TheVickershardnessnumberisafunctionofthetestforcedividedbythesurfacearea
oftheindent.Theaverageofthetwodiagonalsisusedinthefollowingformulato
calculatetheVickershardness.

Observations:

Specimen
(quenching
medium)

No.of
Observation

Water

Diagonald
1
(m)

Diagonald
2
(m)

Vickers
Hardness
Value(HV)

109.9

109.9

76.7

110.3

110.5

76.07

113.8

113.5

71.7

Oil

120.2

122.1

63.1

116.3

116.5

68.4

118.4

120.1

65.2

Sand

128.3

127.1

56.8

129.3

129.3

55.4

126.5

129.4

56.6

Air

145.9

146.2

43.4

144.1

144.3

44.5

143.1

142.7

45.4

Furnace

155.1

153.5

38.9

149.8

150.2

41.2

152.8

151.2

40.1

Basic

160.5

160.6

35.9

157.8

158.2

37.1

160.9

161.5

35.7

Samples:

A.
BEFORE INDENTATION

Thisisthephototakenfromthemicroscoperepresentingmicrostructureofaluminiumspecimen
afterundergoingseveralheattreatmentprocessesfollowedbypolishingbutbeforeindentation.

B.
AFTER INDENTATION

Thisphotoisalsotakenfrommicroscope.Itrepresentsthemicrostructureofindentedsurfaceof
aluminumspecimen.

Conclusion:

As we observed, the strongerthequenchingmedium,fasteristhecoolingrateandmore

hardnessisimpartedtomaterial.

Severity order of Quenching medium

Water>Oil>Sand>Air>Furnacecooling

Hardness Order of aluminium specimens in different quenching media

Water>Oil>Sand>Air>Furnacecooling>Basic(Notheattreated)

Finally we conclude that Heat treatment of aluminium is done to alter the mechanical
properties ofit.Heattreatmenttechniquesincludeannealing,quenchingindifferentmedia
etc.
Annealing is most often used to soften a metal for cold working, to improve
machinability, or to enhance properties like electrical conductivity whereas
Quenching
is
done to improve the strength of aluminium i.e to make the aluminium more harder and
brittle.

Acknowledgement:

Special Thanks to Workshop and Material Science Lab fortheirhelpwithmaterialprovision.And

alsoto
Prof. Swarup Bag
forgivingusthisopportunity.