Effects of Cryogenic Treatment on Residual Stress and Tensile Properties for 6061 Al Alloy

To develop a 6061 aluminum alloy with low residual stress and high tensile strength, a cryogenic treatment process was investigated. Compared to the conventional heat treatment process for precipitation hardening with artificial aging, the cryogenic treatment process has two additional steps. The first step is cryogenic quenching of the sample into liquid nitrogen, the second step is up-hill quenching of the sample into boiling water. The residual stress for the sample was measured by the sinψ method with X-ray diffraction. The 6061 aluminum alloy sample showed 67% relief in stress at the cryogenic treatment process with artificial aging at 175°C. From this study, it was found that the optimum cryogenic treatment process for a sample with low residual stress and high tensile strength is relatively low cooling speed in the cryogenic quenching step and a very high heating speed in the up-hill quenching step. (Received September 9, 2010)