Influence of cold rolling degree and ageing treatments on the precipitation hardening of 2024 and 7075 alloys

In the present work, the precipitation hardening of 2024 and 7075 aluminum alloys is investigated as a function of cold rolling degree, ageing time and temperature using Vickers microhardness measurements and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It is found that a variation in such parameters can improve the hardness and plays an important role in the precipitation hardening process. At specific ageing temperature, the large cold rolled 7075 alloy exhibits two peaks of hardness. Moreover, for both alloys, the increment of hardness during ageing decreases with increasing the cold rolling degree. While in some cases microhardness measurements give impression that the precipitation reaction is slowed down by deformation, DSC analysis indicates that the precipitation is much accelerated since only a slight deformation decreases strongly the temperatures of reactions. However, the degree of cold rolling does not play a crucial role.