Investigation of Thermophysical Properties of AW-2024-T3 Bare and Clad Aluminum Alloys

In this paper, thermophysical and viscoelastic dynamic mechanical measurements (DMA) were performed for bare and clad aluminum AW-2024-T3 alloys. Specific heat, thermal diffusivity, and dynamic module (storage and loss) tests were performed in the range of 50 to 500 °C, except for DMA ones (RT-400 °C). All tests were carried out using the following specialized measuring stands: a light flash apparatus (LFA), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and a dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA). The microstructures and compositions of alloys were investigated by light microscope (LM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Furthermore, Vickers micro-hardness measurements were conducted prior to and after DSC studies. Different precipitation kinetics of the q' and S' metastable phases in the bare 2024-T3 compared to the clad alloy were observed by DSC. Additionally, the DSC results for a few selected scan rates were analyzed by the Kissinger method to give activation energies for the precipitation of q' and S' metastable phases in the alloys. The apparent activation energy of the q' and S' phases corresponds to 137.1 ± 4.4 for the bare alloy and 131.0 ± 6.0 (exo) and 104.1 ± 2.1 (exo) (two peaks) for the clad alloy.