Quench Rate Study on AA7075 with Advanced Aging and T6

The aluminum alloy 7075 sheets have drawn more attention in recent years in the automotive industry for lightweighting. Hot stamping of high-strength aluminum alloy has been developed to improve the formability of the part without springback. Obtaining an adequate quench rate is a critical step of the hot stamping process and corresponds to good strength and corrosion resistance. This work looks at measuring the quench rate of 7075 at advanced aging (AA) and T6 condition via two different approaches: forced air and water with various temperatures. The results verify that water is a superior form of quenching, i.e., from 50°C/s to 550°C/s, the forced air-cooled quench rate is 2°C/s-10°C/s. Besides, mechanical properties such as yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and uniform elongation were measured by tensile testing. As a result, a correlation between the quench rate and final mechanical properties was developed. In addition, microstructure and corrosion analyses were conducted. Most importantly, an advanced aging process with significantly reduced aging time and similar material properties was investigated, which has great potential benefits of high efficiency and low cost for automotive applications.