Characterization of the A6060 Al Alloy Mainly by Using the Micro-Hardness Vickers Test in Order to Optimize the Industrial Solutionizing Conditions of the As-Cast Billets

Abstract

Heat treatable Al alloys of the 6xxx series are produced by the industry following a path that consolidates melting of raw materials, casting the melt in billets, solutionizing the billets following a suitable thermal cycle, pre-heating and extruding the material to profiles and finally aging the profiles. Although this procedure is known for pure materials from the scientific point of view, the introduction of scrap to the raw materials for melting modifies to an extent the fabrication conditions that follow casting. This fact affects the production cost. In this article we propose a research way based mainly on micro-Vickers tests that lead to an optimization of the treatment conditions for solutionizing the billets.