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A novel electromagnetic shocking treatment (EST) is put forward to reduce the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) susceptibility of high-strength aluminum alloys and its fasteners by selectively modifying grain boundary (GB) microstructure. The effect of EST on the microstructure, mechanical properties and SCC susceptibility of T73-Al7075 alloy and its high-lock nuts has been investigated. Mechanical properties, electrochemical performance and constant strain SCC test have been carried out for T73-Al7075 alloy, microhardness test and SCC test under wet-dry cyclic condition have been carried out for its high-lock nuts, as well as microstructure characterizations via SEM, EBSD and TEM have been carried out for T73-Al7075 alloy. Comparing to the received sample, the strength of EST sample basically keep consistent while the elongation increases slightly, besides, the electrical conductivity and electrochemical corrosion performance improves. The SCC susceptibility of T73-Al7075 alloy and its high-lock nuts have been reduced after EST. Microstructure characterization shows that the grain morphology and matrix intragranular precipitate distribution of the EST sample keep almost the same as those of the received sample, which is consistent with the almost unchanged mechanical properties of alloy sample. However, EST induces the transformation of grain boundary precipitates (GBPs) and the formation of stripy/wavy GB as observed experimentally, which indicates that EST promotes nonlinear GB wetting or pre-melting and even grain bridging. The phase transformation and GB complexion transition induced by EST are main factors attributing to the obvious improvement of SCC resistance of T73-Al7075 alloy and its high-lock nuts. It can be deduced that anodic dissolution cracking will be relieved because of the dissolution and coarsening of GBPs. Hydrogen induced cracking and crack propagation can be relieved with the occurrence of grain bridging. They are both beneficial to improve SCC resistance of Al7075 alloys. This work provides a novel EST method to targetedly embellish GB microstructure, optimize GB complexion and connectivity, and then enhance the service performance of solid alloys and even finished parts. [Display omitted] • A novel EST is put forward to improve SCC of T73-Al7075 alloys and its fastener. • EST selectively modifies GBs of Al alloy without losing mechanical properties. • EST promotes GB wetting and grain bridging on nanoscale for Al7075 alloy. • EST improves SCC of T73-Al7075 alloys by embellishing GB complexion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solidification experiments were carried out for Al-Bi alloys with the addition of TiC. It is demonstrated that the average size of the Bi-rich minority phase particles (MPPs) shows a tendency of keeping constant, increasing, decreasing and then keeping constant again with the increase of the additive amount of TiC. The MPPs can be refined effectively with the addition of an appropriate amount of TiC. A model was developed to describe the kinetic behavior of the TiC particles in the melt and the microstructure evolution during the liquid-liquid (L-L) phase transformation of the Al-Bi alloys with the addition of TiC. The numerical results show that TiC particles may dissolve and coarsen during the heating period, and precipitate out during the cooling period of the melt. There may be two kinds of TiC particles: the one remained during holding temperature and the one precipitated during a cooling of the melt. Both of them can work as the inoculants for the nucleation of the minority phase droplets. What determines the refining efficiency is the resultant number density of the TiC particles in the melt cooled to the binodal line temperature. This research demonstrates that inoculation is an effective method for controlling the L-L phase transformation. The addition of the efficient inoculant may promote the formation of a monotectic alloy with a well dispersed microstructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an emerging technology to solve the bottleneck of plastic processing of light alloys, electromagnetic forming usually causes a complex mechanical response and microstructure evolution of materials. In this work, based on the electromagnetic ring expansion (EMRE) experiment, the relationship between microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of AA2219-T6 under EMRE with different discharge energies is established. In particular, to reveal the influence of strain and temperature parameters on the output response during the electromagnetic pulse process, a Q235 steel sleeve and an epoxy resin sleeve with different thermal conductivities are applied to constrain the deformation of the ring, respectively, thus the performance under electromagnetic treatment (EMT) are investigated. It is found that, under the threshold discharge energy of 4.23 kJ, the microhardness of the ring via EMT with the steel sleeve is similar to that of AA2219-T6, but increases by 20.9% compared with the ring via EMT with the epoxy sleeve and 17.1% compared with the ring via EMRE. The electromagnetic pulse has no significant effect on the evolution of precipitates in AA2219-T6-EMT (Steel), but the adiabatic temperature rise in AA2219-T6-EMT (Epoxy) caused redissolution of G.P.Ⅱ zones. With the gradual increase of discharge energy under EMRE, the microhardness of AA2219-T6 increases initially and followed by a decrease, while the fracture strain increases continuously. When discharge energy reaches 8.63 kJ, 2219 aluminum alloy has the optimal mechanical properties that, compared with AA2219-T6, the microhardness increased by 14.2% and the fracture strain increased by 18.0%. The dislocation density shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the increase of discharge energy. Combined with the observed phase transformation, it is shown that dislocations generated by EMRE will promote G.P.Ⅱ zones to transform into θ ′′ phases, and affected by dislocation density, the transformation effect is most obvious at 8.63 kJ. In addition, the transformation of precipitates greatly increases the probability of hindering the motion of dislocations, which promotes the precipitates to be dispersed, and AA2219-T6 is further strengthened after EMRE. As discharge energy continues to increase, the dislocations begin to annihilate and G.P.Ⅱ zones are redissolved due to the adiabatic temperature rise. • G.P.Ⅱ zones are redissolved with a significant temperature rise in EMRE and EMT. • EMRE promotes the instant phase transformation affected by dislocation density. • The optimal performance under EMRE is obtained at a discharge energy of 8.63 kJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]