Microstructure and properties of a novel Al-Mg-Si alloy aa 6086

Abstract

In this work, we investigated a novel Al-Mg-Si alloy, which was developed from an AA 6082, in order to considerably improve the yield and tensile strengths whilst retain excellent ductil-ity. The new alloy possesses a higher content of Si than specified by AA 6082, and, in addition, it contains copper and zirconium. The alloy was characterized in the as-cast condition, after homoge-nization, extrusion, and T6 heat treatment using light microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis and tensile testing. After T6 temper, tensile strengths were around 490 MPa with more than 10% elongation at fracture. The microstructure consisted of small-grained Al-rich matrix with α-AlMnSi.