Journal of MetallurgyVolume 2012 (2012), Article ID 294874, 2 pagesdoi:10.1155/2012/294874

Editorial

Thermal and Mechanical Treatments of Al, Al Alloys, and Other Lightweight Metals and Alloys

Hugh J. McQueen,¹ Enrico Evangelista,² Michael E. Kassner,³ and Chong Soo Lee⁴

¹Materials Processing Mechanical/Industrial Engineering, Concordia University Montreal, QC, Canada, H3G 1M8²Department of Metallurgy, Polytechnic University, I 60131 Ancona, Italy³Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA 22203, USA⁴Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang 790-784, Republic of Korea

Received 9 May 2012; Accepted 9 May 2012

Copyright © 2012 Hugh J. McQueen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Thermomechanical processing was first coined for steels in the 1950s, but it had been around since the 1850s, when Kirkaldy conducted extensive research linking processing, tensile properties, and microstructures, including fractographs [1–3]. Often, it was practiced without complete understanding, as for eutectoid steel in rolling and cooling and in patenting wire with transformation and wire drawing [4]. For Al, improved processing schedules were found for Al-Mg-Si alloys in press quenching after hot extrusion and in solution treating before cold impact extrusion [5–10]. The wide variety of TMP for Al is found in a recent book [11] that relates it to all classes of alloys and to rolling [12–16], extrusion [8, 9, 16], and forging [17]. TMP has spread to many metals as noted in the adjoining papers developed to level that modeling is possible [18].

In broad definition, TMP is a sequence of temperature and strain operations to produce a shape and a microstructure with outstanding properties for that alloy [19, 20]. If a step obliterates the previous microstructures, then the whole sequence does not qualify as TMP [7, 10, 11, 16]. Time or space breaks are permitted, for example, multistage cold rolling to suitable strain, annealing to a fine grain size and finally deep drawing or preaging an Al autobody panel so that precipitation is completed in the paint baking process [21]. The processing becomes more valuable if several steps can be combined, thus saving in labor, equipment, and energy [7–9, 16]. Preliminary research must be conducted to understand the effects of ranges in composition, temperature, and strain rate, as exemplified in the papers that follow.

Al and Mg alloys have no allotropic transformations but can be precipitation hardened. Generally, Al can be worked over the range of 200–500°C [19, 20, 22–24], whereas Mg has insufficient operating slip systems below 200°C and above that has less uniform substructures and lower ductility than comparable Al alloys [25]. Dislocation substructures vary by temperature and strain rate have significant effects on particle distributions [10, 11, 24] and in superplastic behavior [6, 26]. The paper by M. E. Kassner et al. compares quench sensitivity of two Al-Mg-Si alloys, and Fare et al. consider the effect of severe deformation on aging. The influence of temperature on an Mg alloy is reported by Yeom et al.

Steels and Ti alloys have an allotropic transformation [3, 27, 28] that develops a variety microstructures dependent on composition and cooling rate usually with different precipitation behaviors for the same alloying [1, 3, 4, 29, 30]. Structural refinement can be enhanced in the course of shaping by changing from one phase to another or by manipulating the duplex structure [3, 31, 32]. Steels have by far the widest selection of TMP, such as controlled rolling for ferrite grain refining and carry-over of substructures into bainite or martensite to name a few; each of these with many options depends on the solute or precipitation alloying [1, 18, 29, 33]. Dislocation substructures play a significant role in nucleation of the new phase or are carried through a martensitic type, as well as nucleating particles [30, 31, 34]. Fundamental aspects of these possibilities are clarified in the papers by Yeom et al. (extrusion Ti 6 Al-4V) and by Li et al. (martensite Ti-3.5Al-4.5Mo).

Hugh J. McQueenEnrico EvangelistaMichael E. KassnerChongo Soo Lee

References

H. J. McQueen, “Historical aspects of thermomechanical processing for steels,” Materials Science Forum, vol. 539–543, no. 5, pp. 4397–4404, 2007.

H. J. McQueen, “Successful transition from wrought iron to steel in hot work processing with mechanism differences,” Materials Science Forum, vol. 638-642, pp. 3380–3387, 2010.

C. M. Sellars, “Hot working and forming processes,” C. M. Sellars and G. J. Davies, Eds., pp. 3–15, Metals Society, London, UK, 1980.

H. J. McQueen, “Behavior of pearlite in thermomechanical processing and service-historical perspective,” Materials Science Forum, vol. 706-709, pp. 2776–2781, 2012.

C. M. Sellars, “Al alloys, physical mechanical properties,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Aluminium Alloys (ICAA3 '92), L. Arnberg, et al., Ed., vol. 3, pp. 89–105, NTH/SINTEFF, Trondheim, Norway, 1992.

H. J. McQueen and J. J. Jonas, “Therrnomechanical processing (TMP) of aluminum alloys,” in Proceedings of the Aluminium, C. Q. Chen, Ed., pp. 727–747, Academic Pub, Beijing, China, 1990.

H. J. McQueen, Materials Science Forum, vol. 519-523, ICAA10, pp. 1493–1498, 2006.

H. J. McQueen and O. C. Celliers, “Application of hot workability studies to extrusion processing—part II. Microstructural development and extrusion of Al, Al-Mg, and Al-Mg-Mn alloys,” Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 305–319, 1996.

H. J. McQueen and O. C. Celliers, “Application of hot workability studies to extrusion processing—part III: physical and mechanical metallurgy of Al-Mg-Si and Al-Zn-Mg alloys,” Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 73–86, 1997.

H. J. McQueen and E. Evangelista, “Hot working defines thermomechanical processing (TMP) for aluminum alloys and composites,” Materials Science Forum, vol. 706–709, pp. 89–96, 2012.

H. J. McQueen, S. Spigarelli, M. E. Kassner, and E. Evangelista, Hot Deformation and Processing of Aluminum Alloys, CRC Press (Tailor and Francis Group), Boca Raton, Fla, USA, 2011.

H. J. McQueen, “Substructural influence in the hot rolling of Al alloys,” Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, vol. 50, no. 6, pp. 28–33, 1998.

I. Poschmann and H. J. McQueen, “Static restoration of aluminium during multi-stage hot rolling simulation,” Materials Research and Advanced Techniques, vol. 87, no. 5, pp. 349–356, 1996.

I. Poschmann and H. J. McQueen, “Multi-step hot working of Al-5 wt.% Mg,” Materials Research and Advanced Techniques, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 14–22, 1997.

J. Hirsch, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Thermomechanical Processing of Steels and Other Materials (Thermec '97), T. Chandra and T. Sakai, Eds., pp. 1083–1094, TMS, Warrendale, Pa, USA, 1998.

H. J. McQueen and M. E. Kassner, Light Weight Alloys for Aerospace Applications, Edited by K. Jata, TMS-AIME, Warrendale, Pa, USA, 2001.

H. J. McQueen and E. Evangelista, Materials in the Automotive Industry, The Metallurgical Society of CIM, Montreal, Canada, 2001.

C. M. Sellars, From Trial and Error to Computer Modeling of TMP, Bessemer Lecture, Institute of Metals, Materials, Minerals, London, UK, 2010.

J. G. Morris, Ed., Thermomechanical Processing of Al Alloys, Metallurgical Society of AIME, 1979.

E. H. Chia and H. J. McQueen, Eds., Microstructural Control in Al Alloys, Metallurgical Society of AIME, Warrendale, Pa, USA, 1986.

D. J. Lloyd, Advances in Industrial Materials, Edited by D. S. Wilkinson, The Metallurgical Society of CIM, Montreal, Canada, 1998.

H. J. McQueen, Hot Deformation of Aluminum Alloys, TMS-AIME, Warrendale, Pa, USA, 1991.

H. J. McQueen and W. Blum, Aluminium, vol. 80, pp. 1151–1159, 2004.

H. J. McQueen, “Aerospace materials and manufacturing IV: advances in processing/repair,” in Proceedings of the 47th Conference of Metallurgists, M. Jahazi, P. C. Patnaik, and M. Elboudjaini, Eds., pp. 111–123, MetSociety of CIM, Montreal, Canada, 2008.

H. J. McQueen, “Magnesium in the Global Age,” M. O. Pekguleryuz and L. W. MacKenzie, Eds., pp. 399–420, MetSociety of CIM, Montreal, Canada, 2006.

B. M. Watts, M. J. Stowell, B. L. Baikie, and D. G. E. Owen, “Superplasticity in Al-Cu-Zr alloys—1. Material preparation and properties,” Metal Science, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 189–197, 1976.

D. L. Bourell and H. J. McQueen, “Thermomechanical processing of iron, titanium, and zirconium alloys in the bcc structure,” Journal of Materials Shaping Technology, vol. 5, pp. 53–73, 1987.

H. J. McQueen and D. L. Bourell, “Hot workability of metals and alloys,” Journal of Metals, vol. 39, no. 9, pp. 28–35, 1987.

J. J. Jonas and C. M. Sellars, in Proceedings of the Sir Robert Honeycombe Commemmorative Symppsium, pp. 147–177, Institute of Materials Royal Society, London, UK, 1992.

H. J. McQueen, N. D. Ryan, and E. V. Konopleva, in Proceedings of the Guthrie Symposium onMetallurgy, M. Isac, Ed., pp. 205–211, McGill Metals Processing Center, Montreal, Canada, 2011.

V. M. Khlestov, E. V. Konopleva, and H. J. McQueen, “Effect of deformation in controlled rolling on ferrite nucleation,” Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 221–234, 2001.

E. Evangelista, H. J. McQueen, M. Niewczas, and M. Cabibbo, “Hot workability of 2304 and 2205 duplex stainless steels,” Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 339–354, 2004.

H. J. McQueen, S. Yue, N. D. Ryan, and E. Fry, “Advanced materials and technologies,” L. A. Dobrzanski, Ed., pp. 295–332, Silesian Technical University, Gliwice, Poland, 1995.

H. J. McQueen and E. Evangelista, “Super-high strength steels,” A. J. Deardo, et al., Ed., Electronic Plenary, p. 22, Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, Milan, Italy, 2010.