An Al-17Fe alloy with high ductility and excellent thermal stability

In this work, Al-17Fe alloys (wt%) were prepared by a combination of different techniques, including centrifugal atomization and mechanical milling, followed by compaction via hot extrusion or advanced spark plasma sintering. Both alloys exhibited a satisfactory hardness of approximately 120 HV 5, which is almost identical to the reference Al-12Si-1Cu-1Mg-1Ni casting alloy. However, when annealed at 400 degrees C for up to 100 h, the investigated alloys showed excellent thermal stability, which manifested as an almost negligible change in the initial hardness. In comparison, the reference Al-12Si-1Cu-1Mg-1Ni alloy softened considerably, with a decrease in hardness by almost 50% to 63 HV 5. Compressive stress-strain tests of compact samples at laboratory temperature or at an elevated temperature of 400 degrees C in the initial state and after 100 h of annealing at 400 degrees C confirmed similar or superior ultimate compressive and compressive yield strengths for both the Al-17Fe alloys compared to the reference Al-12Si-1Cu-1Mg-1Ni alloy, which softened considerably when annealed at the elevated temperatures. More importantly, the centrifugally atomized and hot-extruded Al-17Fe alloy exhibited outstanding ductility, reaching 34%, even when compressively tested at laboratory temperature. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.