Improving the Elevated-Temperature Properties by Two-Step Heat Treatments in Al-Mn-Mg 3004 Alloys

In the present work, two-step heat treatments with preheating at different temperatures (175 °C, 250 °C, and 330 °C) as the first step followed by the peak precipitation treatment (375 °C/48 h) as the second step were performed in Al-Mn-Mg 3004 alloys to study their effects on the formation of dispersoids and the evolution of the elevated-temperature strength and creep resistance. During the two-step heat treatments, the microhardness is gradually increased with increasing time to a plateau after 24 hours when first treated at 250 °C and 330 °C, while there is a minor decrease with time when first treated at 175 °C. Results show that both the yield strength (YS) and creep resistance at 300 °C reach the peak values after the two-step treatment of 250 °C/24 h + 375 °C/48 h. The formation of dispersoids is greatly related to the type and size of pre-existing Mg₂Si precipitated during the preheating treatments. It was found that coarse rodlike β^′-Mg₂Si strongly promotes the nucleation of dispersoids, while fine needle like β^″-Mg₂Si has less influence. Under optimized two-step heat treatment and modified alloying elements, the YS at 300 °C can reach as high as 97 MPa with the minimum creep rate of 2.2 × 10⁻⁹ s⁻¹ at 300 °C in Al-Mn-Mg 3004 alloys, enabling them as one of the most promising candidates in lightweight aluminum alloys for elevated-temperature applications.