Alcoa Inc.

Daniel T Moulton

Dhruba J Chakrabarti

Paul E Magnusen

Robert W Westerlund

Anthony Morales

Anne E Zemo

James Phillip Jones

William D Bennon

Gene R Walker

A process for improving 6XXX alloys, such as 6013, preferably includes heating, hot rolling, inter-rolling thermal treatment at a very high temperature such as 1020&#xb0; F. or more, again hot rolling (with or without subsequent continuous hot rolling or cold rolling or both), solution heat treating and artificial aging. The initial heating, inter-rolling, thermal treatment and solution treatment, especially the latter two, are carried out at very high temperatures such as 1030&#xb0; F. Each aforesaid hot rolling stage produces substantial metal thickness reduction. The improved sheet or plate product has a substantially reduced occurrence of reduced density features revealed in scanning electron microscope examination at 500X and exhibits improved (reduced) fatigue crack growth rate providing an advantage in aerospace applications such as fuselage skin, especially fuselage belly skin.

Process to improve 6XXX alloys by reducing altered density sites

A process for improving 6XXX alloys, such as 6013, preferably includes heating, hot rolling, inter-rolling thermal treatment at a very high temperature such as 1020&deg; F. or more, again hot rolling (with or without subsequent continuous hot rolling or cold rolling or both), solution heat treating and artificial aging. The initial heating, inter-rolling, thermal treatment and solution treatment, especially the latter two, are carried out at very high temperatures such as 1030&deg; F. Each aforesaid hot rolling stage produces substantial metal thickness reduction. The improved sheet or plate product has a substantially reduced occurrence of reduced density features revealed in scanning electron microscope examination at 500&times; and exhibits improved (reduced) fatigue crack growth rate providing an advantage in aerospace applications such as fuselage skin, especially fuselage belly skin.

The present invention is directed to a process comprised of a controllably variable liquid quenching means for metal alloys at or above the Leidenfrost temperature without metal alloy distortion.

Process for quenching heat treatable metal alloys

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Bettendorf, IA, United States of America

Daniel T Moulton