Effect of electropulse on solid solution treatment of 6061 aluminum alloy

A facile method for solid-solution treatment of 6061 Al alloys by using electropulse, namely electropulsing solution treatment (EPST) is explored in this study. Compared with the conventional solution treatment (CST), the EPST tremendously improves the dissolution rate. The dissolution process completes in 15 s. The EBSD analysis shows that the recrystallized grain sizes of EPST samples are finer and more uniform than the CST samples. The XRD analysis indicates higher supersaturation degree is achieved by EPST. Higher supersaturation degree leads to the formation of denser precipitation in the aging process. As a result, the EPST-aged samples get a 6.8% increase in tensile strength and a 7.2% increase in Vickers hardness compared with the CST-aged samples. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.