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Mechanical properties of β″ precipitates containing Al and/or Cu in age hardening Al alloys

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Abstract

Evidences show that the composition of β″ formed in age hardening of Al alloys should be the prototype Mg5Si6 with Al and/or Cu addition. In the present work, molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the influence of the addition of Al and/or Cu to the mechanical properties of the prototype Mg5Si6. Our simulations imply that Mg5Si6 with both Al and Cu addition has relatively poor mechanical performance when compared with other three models. The snapshots of atomic configurations during uniaxial tension test illustrate that only if both Al and Cu dissolve in β″, clusters can form through Al atoms segregating around Cu atoms, thus applying different stress fields on the Al matrix, resulting different mechanical properties in comparison with other three β″ models.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The financial supports from the project of Innovation-driven plan in Central South University (Grant No. 2015CX004) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51531009) are greatly acknowledged. Part of the first-principles calculations were carried out on the High Performance Computing Center of Central South University, China.

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  1. State Key Lab of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, China

    Yue Qiu, Yi Kong, ShiDi Xiao & Yong Du

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  1. Yue Qiu
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  4. Yong Du
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Correspondence to Yi Kong.

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Qiu, Y., Kong, Y., Xiao, S. et al. Mechanical properties of β″ precipitates containing Al and/or Cu in age hardening Al alloys. Journal of Materials Research 31, 580–588 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.63

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2016.63

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