Self-healing of deformation damage in underaged Al-Cu-Mg alloys

Hautakangas, S. and Schut, H. and van Dijk, N. H. and Rivera Díaz del Castillo, P. E.J. and van der Zwaag, S. (2008) Self-healing of deformation damage in underaged Al-Cu-Mg alloys. Scripta Materialia, 58 (9). pp. 719-722. ISSN 1359-6462

Abstract

The generation and evolution of open volume defects in underaged and T3 Al-Cu-Mg alloy is studied with positron annihilation spectroscopy. During room temperature ageing the positron lifetime in plastically deformed, underaged material approaches the saturation lifetime of the undeformed material. Doppler-broadening results indicate that this behaviour can be attributed to diffusion and clustering of retained solute Cu atoms at the deformation defects, a process of relevance for the introduction of a self-healing mechanism in age-hardenable aluminium alloys.