Mechanical response of Aluminium alloy AA6061 butt-welded joints

subjected to two initial tempers and different heat treatments

A. Alisibramulisi1, a *, O.G. Lademo2,4,5,b, O.R. Myhr2,3,c and P.K. Larsen2,5,d

1
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam, Malaysia
2
Department of Structural Engineering, Norwegian University of Science
and Technology (NTNU), Norway
3
Hydro Aluminium, Research and Technology Development, Norway.
4
SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, NO-7465, Trondheim, Norway
5
Structural Impact Laboratory (SIMLab), NTNU, Norway
a
aniz.9949@gmail.com, bodd-geir.lademo@ntnu.no, cole.myhr@ntnu.no, and dper.larsen@ntnu.no
[Don’t type anything in this line, it’ll show the date of receipt and acceptance]

Keywords: AA6061, heat treatments, initial temper, tensile test, DIC and hardness profiles

Abstract
Experimental studies have been carried out on butt-welded specimens of aluminium alloy AA6061.
Two tempers; T4 and T6 prior to welding were investigated and the subsequent effects of natural
ageing (NA) and post weld heat treatment (PWHT) were assessed. Digital image correlation (DIC)
technique was used to obtain full field strain measurement on the transversely loaded tensile
specimens. The tensile properties of these specimens are presented in terms of response curves. In
addition, hardness profiles were also obtained. Both initial tempers and heat treatments were shown to
give a significant effect on the mechanical response of the specimens tested.

Introduction
Nowadays, welded components made of age-hardening aluminium alloys, are commonly used
within the transport industries due to its good formability, low density, and good resistance to general
corrosion. However, in certain cases, the application of such alloys is restricted by a low strength in
the heat affected zone (HAZ) due to softening reactions occurring during welding, which tend to
reduce the overall load-bearing capacity of the component [1]. In order to improve the strength of the
HAZ for heat treatable alloys like AA6061 (Al-Mg-Si), Post Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) can be
used. Hence, to utilise the properties of aluminium alloys fully, a better understanding of the strength
and ductility of welded joints is needed.

There is no unique definition of structural ductility, and in the present investigation, a definition
proposed by Mazzolani and Piluso 1995 [2] is used:
δ u − δ 0.2
D= . (1)
δ 0.2
Here, D is the structural ductility, δ u is the deformation at ultimate load Pu, and δ 0.2 is the
deformation that corresponds to the load P0.2 giving 0.2% permanent elongation. The ratio Pu/P0.2
gives information on the work hardening.

As for obtaining strain, Digital image correlation (DIC) is the most preferred measurement method
nowadays. The DIC is superior to the traditional extensometer because it measures the surface strain
field instead of the average strain over a gauge length. Thus, it is useful when dealing with
heterogeneous strain distributions as well as to determine the local strains in necked regions. The
principle of this technique is adopted from reference [3].

Experimental program
Chemical composition of AA6061 is provided in Table 1. The alloy were given initial heat
treatments corresponding to tempers T4 and T6. The PWHT schemes are summarised in Table 2. The
schemes are motivated by thermal cycles which are commonly imposed to the material in an industrial
process chain. The naturally aged specimens were stored at room temperature for more than one week.
The plates were butt-welded along the extrusion direction to form a plate with nominal width and
length of 400 mm, with the weld along its centre line. The plates were pulsed MIG-welded using
single sided welding and stainless steel backing. The aluminium-based filler material used was
AlMg4.5Mn. Tensile specimens were produced from 3 mm thick extruded plates that were
subsequently cut into 40 mm x 400 mm strips oriented perpendicular to the welding direction. The
cross-sectional area of the gauge section was reduced relative to that of the remainder of the specimen
to localize deformation and failure in this region. The cross-weld tensile tests were performed under
displacement control with crosshead displacement rate of 5 mm/min. The deformation in the centre
region of the specimen was measured using an extensometer with 50 mm gauge length and a Canon
EOS 1D camera was used for strain field determination using DIC (see Fig.1). The standard Vickers
Hardness (HV) test method [4] was used in obtaining the hardness profiles (the specimens were
extended 25mm from weld centre-line).

Table 1: Chemical composition (in weight %)

Fe Si Cu Mg Cr Mn Zn Zr Ti
0.20 0.62 0.19 0.79 0.01 0.06 0.01 0.002 0.008

Table 2: PWHT schemes

NA T6 T7 KTL
AA6061
RT > 1 week 7h/185°C 7h/215°C 30min/195°C

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 1: Deformations measured using DIC, (a) initial grids on image, (b) final grids on image and
(c) displacement of specimen.

Results and discussion

The mechanical properties will be discussed in terms of tensile properties and hardness as follows:

Cross-weld tensile test

Fig.2, and Table 3 show that the initial temper greatly affects the tensile properties of the
material. In the as-delivered conditions (i.e. the NA curves in Fig.2 (a) and (b)); the stress at 0.2%
plastic strain, s0.2 is significantly lower in T4 than in the peak-aged T6 condition. The work hardening
is, however, considerably larger for the former condition. In agreement with Considers’ classical
criterion [5] for the onset of diffuse necking, this leads to a more ductile specimen response for the T4
compared with the T6 condition. It may also be noted that for KTL PWHT scheme the strain at
ultimate stress is smaller than NA in initial T4. Overall, the strain and ductility are greatly reduced for
NA and KTL PWHT in initial T6, but not so much difference for T6 and T7 PWHT between the two
initial tempers.

From a theoretical point of view; the T6 condition is, the peak aged condition of the material.
Consequently, further thermal processing should reduce the material strength, due to precipitate
coarsening. For initial condition T4, the precipitate structure is not in peak-aged size and distribution.
Thus, the PWHT schemes represent an artificial ageing sequence that shall increase the strength of the
material. The strength increase occurs on the cost of a reduced work hardening, i.e. causing a
reduction of the specimen ductility towards the levels seen for the material in the as-delivered T6
condition. Principally, the experimental results are in accordance with theory, except that the T6
PWHT scheme causes a slight strength increase also for the material in as-delivered T6 condition.
This is to be expected if the received T6 material was slightly underaged rather than aged to peak
strength. Then prolonged heating at the ageing temperature corresponding to PWHT-T6 would lead to
a strength increase.
300 300

250 250

200 200
s [MPa]
s [MPa]

150 150

100 NA
100 NA
T6 T6
50 T7 50 T7
KTL KTL
0 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
e e
(a) Initial T4 (b) Initial T6
Figure 2: Cross-weld tensile test results of AA6061, after NA and PWHT

Table 3: Results from cross-weld tensile tests of AA6061

Condition PWHT sult eu D Pu
and label [MPa] [mm/mm]
P 0.2
NA 179 0.130 44.9 1.9
T6 238 0.050 11.3 1.2
T4
T7 207 0.045 10.5 1.2
KTL 183 0.082 30.3 1.7
NA 199 0.053 14.8 1.7
T6 240 0.052 9.5 1.1
T6
T7 221 0.061 12.1 1.2
KTL 202 0.047 11.7 1.6

Hardness profiles
Fig.3 (a) and (b) shows the hardness profiles determined for the AA6061 weldments in initial
condition T4 and T6, respectively where the abscissa represents the distance from the fusion line.
 For initial temper T4, the hardness seems to be almost constant for each of the four PWHT
schemes. In other words, the hardness measurements indicates that there are only limited traces of the
welding process with almost no weakening of the HAZ for this initial condition.

For initial temper T6, the T6 PWHT scheme gives peak hardness next to the weld. The
hardness decreases gradually from the fusion line and reaches a minimum for x = 4 mm – 6 mm.
Welding in T6 is known to strongly reduce the strength in the HAZ. The NA and KTL PWHT
schemes do not remedy this strength drop. Thus, failure occurs in the HAZ for NA and KTL PWHT
schemes. For the T6 and T7 PWHT schemes, hardness profiles demonstrate that the loss of strength in
the HAZ is regained by the heat treatment. In other words, the specimens have almost constant
hardness (strength) along the gauge section. This caused the failure to occur in the base material.
120 120 NA
NA
110 T6 110 T6
T7
100 T7 100 KTL
KTL
VH1 [VPN]

VH1 [VPN]
90 90
80 80
70 70
60 60
50 50
40 40
30 30
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
x [mm] x [mm]
(a) Initial T4 (b) Initial T6
Figure 3: Hardness test results of AA6061, after NA and PWHT

Conclusion
The work hardening for AA6061, is larger for NA and KTL PWHT in initial T4, which leads
to a more ductile specimen response for the T4 compared with the T6 condition. Overall, the strain
and ductility are greatly reduced for NA and KTL PWHT in initial T6, but not so much difference for
T6 and T7 PWHT between the two initial tempers. In initial temper T6, the hardness profiles show a
significant drop in hardness in a region next to the weld for NA and KTL, indicating the presence of a
HAZ. For the other PWHTs no obvious reduction is observed. These observations are substantiated
by the response curves, which show lower ultimate strength for the NA and KTL-PWHT as compared
to T6 and T7 PWHT. It was found that, T6 and T7 PWHT resulted in superior mechanical properties
and hardness as in Ref. [1]. Hence, both initial tempers and heat treatments were shown to give a
significant effect on the mechanical response of the specimens tested.

References
[1] A. Alisibramulisi, O. R. Myhr, O. –G. Lademo, P. K. Larsen, An experimental investigation of
the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) properties of AA6060 and AA7046 following different heat
treatment schedules, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Aluminium Alloys,
September 5-9 2010, Yokohama, Japan, The Japan Institute of Light Metals, 994-999.
[2] F. M. Mazzolani, V. Piluso, Prediction of the rotation capacity of aluminium alloy beams,
Thin Walled Structures 27(1) (1997) 103-116.
[3] W. D. Lockwood, B. Tomaz, A. P. Reynolds, Mater.Sci.Eng. A323 (2002) 348–353.
[4] Standard Vickers Hardness (HV) test method, ISO 6507-1:1997.
[5] A. Consid`ere, Annales des Ponts et Chauss´ees 6 (1885) 574.