Catalyzed precipitation in Al-Cu-Si

Abstract

The work reported here concerns the effect of Si on the precipitation of θ′ phase (metastable Al₂Cu) during the isothermal aging of Al-2Cu-1 Si (wt pct). The binary alloys Al-2Cu and Al-1 Si were studied for comparison. Only two precipitate phases were detected: essentially pure Si in Al-1 Si and Al-2Cu-1 Si, and θ′ (metastable Al₂Cu) in Al-2Cu and Al-2Cu-1Si. On aging the ternary alloy at 225 °C, Si precipitates first and catalyzes the θ′ phase. The precipitates in the ternary alloy are smaller, are more densely distributed, have lower aspect ratios, and coarsen more slowly than those in the binary Al-2Cu aged at the same temperature. While the shapes of individual θ′ precipitates in binary Al-2Cu are strongly affected by the kinetic problem of nucleating growth ledges, which produces a significant scatter in the aspect ratio for samples of given thickness, the overall evolution of particle shape with size follows the predictions of the Khachaturyan-Hairapetyan (KH) thermoelastic theory, which reduces to κ=L/d ∞ √L at large sizes. The KH theory provides an estimate for the interfacial tension of the broad Al-θ′ interface of 85 to 96 mJ/m², which is near the values for other low-energy interfaces in Al, such as the twin boundary energy (100 mJ/m²) and the antiphase boundary energy in δ′ Al₃Li (70 mJ/m²). Si and θ′ precipitates in Al-2Cu-1 Si have a strong elastic interaction because of their compensating strain fields. This elastic interaction promotes the nucleation of θ′ precipitates on Si, decreases the expected aspect ratio of θ′, and inhibits coarsening. Finally, Si precipitation in ternary Al-2Cu-1 Si differs from that in binary Al-1 Si in that the Si precipitates are coarser, more equiaxed, and more extensively twinned. These changes appear to be effects of Cu, which increases the solubility of Si in Al and adsorbs on the Si-Al interface, promoting twinning by a “step-poisoning” effect at the interface.