Production and heat treatment of 6111 aluminum alloy sheet for car body panel application

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Metalurji ve Malzeme Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: AYLİN SEVİMLİ

Danışman: ALİ KALKANLI

Özet:

Aluminum is one of the major candidates to supply sufficient weight reduction without missing mechanical properties and performance. Therefore, studies have been focused on improving properties of aluminum in automotive application since 1920s. Heat treatable aluminum alloy are used in car body panels of automotive application such as 2xxx, 7xxx and 6xxx series aluminum alloys base on the mechanical properties. On the other hand, based on physical and economical properties 6xxx series aluminum alloys are widely preferred by automotive manufactures. The car body panel needs to be stiff to carry bulk, to sustain stress and to be tough enough to satisfy risk of collision and impact. Besides, it is designed as light as possible for fuel consumption economy and driving performance. For these properties, 6xxx series are important options. In the North America, AA6111 aluminum alloy has been used especially for outer panel of car up to 1 mm thickness. For this purpose, firstly composition as 6111 aluminum alloy was adjusted and prepared AA6111 aluminum alloy was cast into ingots as plate shape. Later, the plate were firstly hot rolled then cold rolled to the desired thickness at convenient condition. Then, to get the desired strength and formability, precipitation strengthening mechanism was chosen to control easily. Hereby, T4 heat treatment was applied. By varying process parameters, the formation of a sheet has been studied and outcome of process have been inspected. Different temperatures and ageing times were studied to find the maximum strength values while considering cost and processing time. Hence, the convenient process parameters were determined to design aluminum sheet for car body panel applications considering sector requirement of performance and safety, lower cost and waste of energy and finally environmental affect.