Precipitation strengthening of ultrafine-grained Al-Mg-Si alloy processed by hydrostatic extrusion

Precipitation strengthening of an ultrafine-grained Al-Mg-Si alloy has been studied using samples obtained by hydrostatic extrusion. It has been demonstrated that the microstructure after hydrostatic extrusion consists of two types of grains: (1) nano-sized free of dislocations and surrounded with high angle grain boundaries and (2) micron-sized with dislocation substructure. After ageing at 160 °C, small needle-like precipitates appear in grain interiors of both nano- and micron-sized grains, bringing about a significant strength improvement. However, the precipitates are smaller than those in their coarse grained counterparts. As a consequence, they constitute weaker barriers for dislocations and induce a lower strengthening effect. In addition, one may observe intensive precipitation at nano-grains boundaries, which further reduces the strengthening effect. It was also shown that peak ageing and overageing take place for much shorter time than in the case of coarse grained samples and are caused by the grain growth rather than a change in the precipitation state.