DSC analysis of the precipitation reactions in the alloy AA6082 - Effect of sample preparation

The deformation introduced during the sample preparation had a high impact on the response of the alloy AA6082 to heating in the DSC cell. The DSC curve was strikingly different when DSC samples of this alloy were punched after the solution treatment. Dislocations introduced by punching have annihilated the quenched-in vacancies and have suppressed clustering initially. Dislocations have also provided heterogeneous nucleation sites for the GP-1 zones that readily grew to become stable nuclei for the beta '' phase owing to the enhanced atomic transport. beta '' as well as the beta' precipitation kinetics were thus accelerated leading to a substantial change in the DSC peak arrangement. Deformation introduced during sample preparation by gentle grinding alone, on the other hand, did not suffice to alter the precipitation sequence, producing a DSC curve very similar to that obtained with samples punched before the solution treatment.