Date of Award
8-1982
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
First Advisor
R.A. Fournelle
Second Advisor
Robert F. Brebrick
Third Advisor
Martin A. Seitz
Fourth Advisor
Robert Blumenthal
Abstract
The morphology and growth kinetics of cellular precipitation and discontinuous coarsening of the cellular precipitate in an Al-29 at. pct. Zn alloy has been investigated at temperatures ranging from 50 to 250°C by light and electron microscopy. At all aging temperatures the alloy was observed to decompose completely by a cellular precipitation reaction which resulted in a fine lamellar structure of aluminum rich and zinc rich solid solutions. The first cell lamellar structure was subsequently decomposed at all aging temperatures by a second cellular or discontinuous coarsening reaction. The discontinuous coarsening reaction occurred at a much slower rate than the first cellular reaction and resulted in a much coarser lamellar structure. Several models for cellular precipitation and the existing theory of Livingston and Cahn for discontinuous coarsening have been used to evaluate the growth kinetics. The Petermann and Hornbogen model appears to describe the results the best. Finally, analysis of the kinetics suggests that both first and second cellular reactions are controlled by cell boundary diffusion in the whole aging temperature range.