Predicting the Structural Performance of Heat-Treatable Al-Alloys

Advances in physically-based and adaptive numeric modelling (ANM) have lead to a significant elevation of the role of modelling in commercial alloy development and process optimisation. Within these two categories of modelling a wide variety of techniques exists, whilst hybrid approaches, taking advantage of the benefits of the both methods, are also being developed. In this paper various ANM techniques and physically-based models relevant for modelling and predicting the properties of heat treatable Al-based alloys are reviewed, and case studies involving the modelling of proof stress, toughness and conductivity of a range of Al-based alloys are presented. These case studies illustrate that successful modelling requires an in-depth understanding of the various modelling options. Selection of the optimum modelling approach is driven by a range of factors, such as size of database available (large databases are best analysed using adaptive numeric modelling approaches), and availability of sound physical understanding (the latter benefiting physically-based approaches).