from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
In its pure form, aluminum is relatively soft, with poor mechanical strength and weak cavitation erosion characteristics. The alloys series 6xxx have as main elements alloying silicon and magnesium, which improve their mechanical properties, making them competitive for many structural applications. The present paper establishes the correlation between the heat treatment, the microstructure and the mechanism of cavitation erosion damage of a deformable alloy, aluminum base. Cavitation tests were conducted on a vibrator with piezo-ceramic crystals that meet ASTM G32 - 2010 requirements. The metallographic examinations by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, coupled with the hardness tests, highlighted the microstructural changes in a cavitationally affected material and the cracks propagation mode.
Keywords: Al-alloy, heat treatment, cavitation erosion, microstructure© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.