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Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242

4th International Conference on Materials Processing and Characterization

Influence of Ageing on Mechanical Properties of 6063 Al Alloy

Supriya Nandya,b*, Md Abu Bakkarb, Debdulal Dasb
a
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302, India
b
Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, Howrah-711102,
India

Abstract

The present study reports on the influence of state of ageing on mechanical properties of 6063 Al-Mg-Si alloy. Ageing response
has been invested at 175 oC for duration ranging from 10 min to 14 days via measurements of hardness and tensile properties,
examinations of tensile fracture surfaces and detailed analyses of strain hardening behavior. The time to peak aged condition has
been identified as 8 h. Irrespective of state of ageing, a linear correlation between hardness and yield strength has been
established through a statistical analysis. The variation of strength and ductility with ageing time has been explained with the
change of rate of hardening induced by inherent microstructural alterations.

2014Elsevier
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Selection andpeer-review
Selection and peer-review under
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responsibility of theofconference
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the 4th International
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on Materials on
Materials
Processing Processing and Characterization.
and Characterization.

Keywords:Artifical ageing; Al-Mg-Si alloy; Mechanical properties; Yield strength; Hardness; Correlation.

1. Introduction

Necessity to increase the fuel economy in automotive industries is pushing the researches for developing high
performance lightweight materials [1]. In recent years, Al alloys are getting more preference over the other
lightweight structural materials due to their high specific strength, excellent formability, and good atmospheric
corrosion resistance. These features have widen the application of Al alloys in the field of aero-industry, automobile

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9836477827; fax: +91 03222 282280/255303.

E-mail address:nandysupriya@gmail.com

2214-7853 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the conference committee members of the 4th International conference on Materials Processing
and Characterization.
doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2015.07.037
 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242 1235

industry, food packaging, heavy duty wire cable, enclosure of an inductor [2] etc. Amongst Al alloys, Al-Mg-Si
(6XXX) alloys have got further preference in industrial applications as these alloys contain very fewer amount of
alloying elements (0.4 to 0.9 wt.% Mg and 0.2 to 0.6wt.% Si) which makes them cheaper than other series like Al-
Cu (2XXX) and Al-Zn (7XXX) alloys [3].
Typically, 60% of total extruded products all over world are made up of Al-Mg-Si alloys [4], amongst which
AA6063 Al alloy is most widely used as structural material. Process of ageing treatment is well known to modulate
the mechanical properties of heat treatable Al alloys via generation of transient precipitates. Al-Mg-Si alloys can be
heat treated to employ precipitation strengthening specially at T6 condition, described by solutionizing at single
phase region (520 to 540 oC) followed by quenching and artificially aged at moderate temperature (150 to 200 oC)
[5]. Vacancies that are generated during homogenization at higher temperature are conserved during quenching and
assist in the formation of transient precipitates during the process of ageing. Hardness and strength of Al alloys vary
with state of ageing determined by the nature, amount, size, shape and distribution of precipitates [6, 7].
The major advantage of precipitation strengthening of 6XXX Al alloys is the set up that are used for their paint
baking of a BIW of an automotive car body [8, 9]. Esezobor and Adeosun [10] have studied the effect of solution
heat treatment parameters on mechanical properties of 6063 Al alloy. Jiang et al. [11] have investigated the
influence of ageing time on hardness, tensile and fatigue properties of AA6063 alloy aged at 160 and 250 oC. Later,
Munitz and co-investigators [12] have demonstrated the role of precipitation strengthening on tensile behavior
during both isothermal (175 oC) and isochronal (5.5 h) ageing of 6063 Al alloy. Siddiqui et al. [13] have attempted
to correlate properties with processing parameters. Fracture and fracture behavior of 6063 Al alloy have been
carried out by Urreta et al. [14], Xiaoshon et al. [15] and Azzam et al. [16]. Recently, Panigrahi and co-workers [17,
18, and 19] have carried out several attempts in number of ways to study the various effects of cryo-rolling on
precipitation sequence and mechanical properties of Al-Mg-Si alloys. Furthermore, several attempts have been
made to study the effects of grain modifier and other alloying elements on the microstructures and mechanical
properties [20, 21] of 6XXX Al alloys. Sato et al. [22] have studied the microstructural evolution and the effect over
hardness during friction stir welding of AA6063 alloy. A similar investigation has been performed on T6-6061 Al
alloy by Venukumar et al. [23].
The present study explores the influence of ageing treatment on hardness, tensile and deformation behavior of
6063 Al alloy. In addition, an attempt has been made to drive a statistical correlation between the hardness and the
yield strength of the differently aged specimens which can be used to predict the yield strength from the measured
hardness.

2. Materials and experimental procedures

Commercially available as hot-extruded rod of Al 6063 alloy having diameter of 16.5 mm had been chosen for
the present investigation. The cylindrical tensile specimens of 25 mm gauge length and 6.5 mm gauge diameter
were prepared as per ASTM E8 standard. Specimens of approximately 15 mm height were machined from
available stock material for hardness measurement. Prepared specimens were subjected to age hardening heat
treatment. It consisted of solutionizing treatment at 525 (2) oC for 2 h followed by ice-water (0 oC) quenching.
Quenched specimens were subjected to artificial ageing at temperature (TA) 175 oC for different time (tA) duration
ranging from 10 min to 14 days. The heat treatment schedule is briefly illustrated in Fig. 1. During the storage and
handling, under aged specimens were preserved at -32 oC to avoid any ageing. The temperature of ageing was
selected considering the widely accepted temperature adapted for paint baking of body in weight for automotive car
body [8, 9].
Heat treated samples were mechanically polished up to 1 m diamond finish in order to remove oxide layers and
to obtain mirror finish surface. Hardness of the aged specimens was measured at 2 kg load and an indentation time
of 10 sec according to ASTM E92 with the help of a Vickers hardness tester (VMHT: Leica, Germany).
Approximately 15 readings were taken for each specimen at room temperature to estimate the mean value. Tensile
tests were carried out using a close-loop servo-hydraulic universal testing machine (Instron: 8801) of 100 kN load
capacity. The test control, data acquisition and data analyses were performed by using Bluehill software (Instron:
Version 2). All these tests were done at ambient temperature of approximately 300 K using a crosshead speed of
1.92 mm/min that corresponds to nominal strain rate of 1 103 s1. The reported tensile properties are average
1236 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242

considering at least two identical test results. Fracture surfaces of some selected tensile specimens were observed
under scanning electron microscope (JEOL, JSM 5510) at different magnifications.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Ageing response

Considering industrial importance, it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge on the evolution of hardness at
175 oC. The variation of measured hardness as function of ageing time is presented in Fig. 2. It has been found that
hardness has not been improved at the very early stage; after ageing of 30 min hardness is found to be 45.9 VHN
which is very similar to the as-quenched hardness of 45.7 VHN. This stage of precipitation can be described as
highly under aged condition. Afterwards, an enhanced rate of improvement in hardness has been observed and
thereby, attaining the peak aged condition at 8 h of ageing at 175 oC. Peak hardness has been found to be 89.5 VHN
and which is about 95% higher than that of the as-quenched hardness. Furthermore, it has been observed that unlike
many age hardenable Al alloys, the rate of drop of hardness beyond peak aged condition is slower for the selected
alloy. Excellent stability of hardness around peak ageing can be verified by comparing the level of hardness found
even after a prolonged ageing of 14 days (68.4 VHN) and a short ageing of 2.5 h (68.2 VHN).
The evolution of precipitate had been studied widely before for Al-Mg-Si alloys. The initial stage of ageing can
be visualized from the dissolution and formation of solute clusters [24]. Afterwards, formation of GP zones is
followed by formation of coherent precipitate, which is the dominant precipitate found during the peak ageing of
the investigated alloy. Further ageing yields gradual incoherency and formation of , B and U precipitates [25].
The equilibrium precipitate is a fully incoherent stable (Mg2Si, CaF type fcc structured) phase [25].

Fig. 1. Presentation of heat treatment schedule for the 6063

Al alloy. Fig. 2. Variation of Vickers hardness with ageing time.

3.2. Tensile properties

Figure 3 depicts engineering stress-strain curve of the chosen alloy subjected to some selected ageing time. It is
noteworthy to mention here that a large amount of serrations has been found (Fig. 3 insert) during tensile
deformation of a highly under aged specimen (aged for 30 min). The serrations occur as a result of dynamic solute
 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242 1237

clustering and/or early state of precipitation. For an under aged 6063 Al alloy, strain induced dynamic precipitation
at room temperature has been reported earlier by Roven et al. [26].
Figure 4 shows the variations of yield and tensile strength as well as uniform and total elongation with ageing
time. It has been found that strength value initially increase with progress of ageing, reaches the peak strength at
around 8 h and then diminishes with further increase of ageing period (Fig. 4(a)). Consecutively, the elongation
values are found to follow a reverse attribute with ageing time (Fig. 4(b)). In general, the observed variation of
tensile properties with the state of ageing is similar to that reported by Munitz et al. [12]. The variation of tensile
properties is related to the change of microstructural state with progress of ageing, i.e., development of GP zones in
the under aged condition to the formation of mainly coherent precipitate in the peak aged state to the generation
of incoherent B and precipitates upon over ageing [24, 25]. Reduction of yield strength from peak aged to over
aged can be described with changes in operative strengthening mechanism from the precipitate shearing to the
Orowan loop formation [27], as the precipitates lose their coherency with the matrix. Total tensile toughness and
reduction in cross sectional area have a direct implication on formability of alloy from commercial point of view.
Figure 5 presents the variations of tensile toughness and cross sectional reduction in area with period of ageing.
Tensile toughness has been found to be maximized at around peak ageing (36.7 J after 6 h) and again falls down
considerably during further ageing (24 J after 14 days) (Fig. 5(a)). Cross sectional reduction in area decreases
monotonically with period of ageing from 60.5 % to 40.3 % when aged for 10 min to 14 days at 175 oC (Fig. 5(b)).
Tensile fracture surface of highly under aged specimens (aged at 175 oC for 30 min) has been shown in the Fig. 6.
Fracture surface reveal presence of well grown numerous dimples indicating ductile mode of fracture. The result
found is very similar to that reported by Jiang et al. [11].

Fig. 3. Engineering stress-strain plots of some selected age conditions. Insert shows zoomed view of the marked portion of 30 min aged
specimen illustrating occurrence of serrations.
1238 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242

Fig. 4. Variations of (a) yield and ultimate tensile strength and (b) uniform and total elongation as functions of ageing time of AA6063 Al alloy.

Fig. 5. Variations of (a) tensile toughness and (b) cross sectional reduction in area as functions of ageing time of AA6063 Al alloy.

3.3. Strain hardening response

Strain hardening is an important parameter to judge the plastic deformation behaviour of any material. It has a
great implication in materials processing technology [28]. Parameters of strain hardening can easily be found from
the well known Hollomon equation (1).
 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242 1239

(1)

where, is the true stress and is the true plastic strain. k is stress at =1.0 and n is the strain hardening
exponent. The magnitude of strain hardening exponent can be determined from the slope of ln versus ln plot.
Again strain hardening rate (d/d) is the first order derivative of with respect to . The magnitudes of d/d and n
are largely dependent on the heat treatment parameters that determine the state of microstructure [27].

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. Representative scanning electron micrographs of tensile fractured surface of AA6063 specimen aged for 10 min, (a) all over view and (b)
magnified view.

Fig. 7. (a) Plots of lnV versus lnH showing the variation of strain hardening exponent (n) with different state of ageing. (b) Representating plots
of rate of strain hardening with true stress for some selected ageing conditions.
1240 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242

Variations of strain hardening exponent and rate of strain hardening with period of ageing have been illustrated
in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. Value of n decreases upon ageing up to peak aged condition and then increases
with further ageing, whereas the strain hardening shows a converse trend. Difference between ultimate tensile
strength and yield strength that measures the degree of strain hardening is found to be initially decreasing from 77
MPa at 30 min of ageing to 41 MPa when aged for 8 h, and then it increases to a reasonable value of 56 MPa after
prolonged ageing of 14 days.

3.4. Correlation of hardness and yield strength

Several attempts [29, 30] have been made earlier to correlate between yield strength and hardness as the
measurement is ease for the later. Over the years, numerous statistical relationships have been developed to find the
appropriate relation between these two properties for various materials [31-34]. Existing models can be categorized
on basis of measured quantity [31]: (i) direct analysis- where direct measurement of hardness relates with the
corresponding yield strength, and (ii) indirect analysis - where mean pressure has been utilized to correlate these
two properties.
For direct analysis, Ives et al. [30] have suggested the following curvilinear relationship between the Brinell
hardness and the yield strength.

   (2)

where, YS and BHN are the yield strength and Brinell hardness number. Intercept 0, and coefficient 1 and 2
are strongly dependent on temper of alloy.
For indirect analysis, Tabor et al. [29] have proposed linear relationship between mean pressure and yield
strength as:

 
           

is the mean pressure and YS is the yield strength on compression. C is the coefficient and its proposed
where, 
value is 1/3.
Most materials are however, found to follow the modified version of Tabors proposition which can be written as
[31]:

 
            

where, value of  can be taken as Brinell or Vickers hardness number. For example, Drouzy et al. [32] have
reported a linear relationship between YS and BHN for Al-7 wt.% Si alloys, which can be written as:

            

Considering all relevant data, a direct statistical analysis has been performed in this study as shown in Fig. 8. A
linear correlation has been obtained as:

           

The obtained values of intercept (C0) and slope (C1) are summarized in Table 1 along with similar results found
in the literature. Interestingly, the value of C1 is same to that reported by Drouzy et al. [32] and originally proposed
by Tabor et al. [29]. However, the obtained value of C0 is different from the other reported values (Table 1),
indicating that its magnitude depends on the composition of the alloy.
 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242 1241

The obtained correlation (Eq. 6) is found to be valid irrespective of the state of ageing although microstrucral
alteration during ageing of Al alloys is highly complex. One can use this relationship to predict the yield strength of
6063 Al alloy from simple measurement of hardness.

Table 1: Results of linear regression analysis for various alloys.

Material Slope Intercept (MPa) R2 value Reference
6063 Al alloy 3.04 -28.8 0.981 Present study
Al-7 wt.%Si 3.0 -80.0 Drouzy et al. [32]
Steels 2.88 -90.7 0.921 Pavlina and Van Tyne [34]

Fig. 8. Statistical correlation between yield strength and Vickers hardness of aged 6063 Al-alloy.

4. Conclusions

The obtained results and their pertinent discussion allow to draw the following conclusions:

x The 6063 Al-Mg-Si alloy exhibits strong ageing response in spite of having very small amounts of Mg and Si.
The time to reach peak hardness has been identified as 8 h at 175 oC. The rate of hardening is faster in the
primary state of ageing, whereas kinetics of over ageing is relatively slow.
x The under-aged specimens show serrations in the stress-strain curve during tensile test at room temperature
indicating strain induced dynamic precipitation.
1242 Supriya Nandy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 2 (2015) 1234 1242

x With increasing ageing time, the difference between yield and tensile strength first decreases then increases
showing a saddle at around peak aged condition. This behavior is similar to the variation of stain hardening
exponent but opposite to that rate of strain hardening with ageing time.
x A statistical analysis results in a linear correlation between the hardness and the yield strength irrespective of the
state of ageing. This enables to predict yield strength of AA67063 alloy from the measured hardness value with
reduced experimental effort.

Acknowledgement

The assistance received from the Centre of Excellence on Microstructurally Designed Advanced Materials
Development, TEQIP-II to carry out a part of this work is gratefully acknowledged.

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