Technical Note: The Effect of Heat Treatment on the Pitting Behavior of SiC_w/AA2124 Available to Purchase

Solution heat treatment is used to improve material strength for precipitation-hardening alloys; parameters such as aging time can affect the size and distribution of precipitates and thus play a major role in controlling material properties. For example, the pitting behavior of aluminum alloys is often influenced by the nature of precipitates and their concentration, because precipitates can serve as pit nucleation sites.¹ –³  For this reason, understanding the influence of heat treatment on the pitting susceptibility of Al–Cu and Al–Cu–Mg alloys is important. Research conducted in this lab oratory has shown that heat treatment of SiC/AA2124 metal matrix composites (MMC) can strongly influence their pitting behavior. Trzaskoma et al.⁴  studied the pitting behavior of several aluminum alloys, including SiC/AA2024-T6 and wrought AA2024-T6; they claimed that the matrix structure and composition as a result of fabrication, had no effect on the pitting potential (E_p) for SiC/AA2024-T6,...