Thermoelectrical power analysis of precipitation in 6013 aluminum alloy

The 6013 aluminum alloy was first developed for application in the aircraft industry and, more recently, as a replacement option for the use of the 6061 alloy in the automotive industry. The present work describes the evolution of the process of formation and dissolution of different kinds of precipitates in 6013 aluminum alloy, subjected to different conditions of heat treatment, using for this purpose measurements of thermoelectrical power, Vickers microhardness and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC).Although in the last years many works have been published on the use of thermoelectrical power (TEP) measurements for the analysis of precipitation process in traditional alloys such as 6061, there is still little information related to 6013 alloy. The results obtained are compared with a previous characterization work on the same alloy using transmission electron microscopy.It was observed that TEP measurements are very sensitive to precipitation phenomena in this alloy, and it has been found that there is an inverse relation between TEP and Vickers microhardness values, which allowed proposing a precipitation sequence for 6013 aluminum alloy.