Author : G Venkateshwarlu, A.M.K.Prasad and K Ramesh Kumar

The general manufacturing objective during the fabrication of automotive, structural and aerospace components, particularly through flow forming process is to achieve predefined product quality characteristics and mechanical properties with process cost and time constraints. The current state of the economy and the consequent market pressure has forced vehicle manufacturers to simultaneously reduce operating expenses along with further improving product quality. With light weight and high performance characteristics Aluminium alloy acts as an important material in defence and aerospace applications. The Mechanical Properties of Aluminium Alloy AA 6061(HE-20) were evaluated and compression test was conducted on the material under annealed condition. Aluminium alloys have attractive properties of high corrosion resistance and excellent machining properties. The micro hardness, microstructure and mechanical properties like hardness, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, Strength Coefficient(K), Strain hardening coefficient (n) and % reduction at fracture of Aluminium Alloy AA 6061(HE-20) were evaluated before the flow forming process, so that these values can be compared after flow forming process. It was observed that Manganese content which controlled the grain structure was slightly high, which results in superior strength. From the microstructure it was revealed that the grain size was uniformly distributed in all the directions.

Keywords: AA6061, Compression test, Strength coefficient, Strain hardening exponent, Micro hardness

Article published in International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Sciences 2014, Special Issue-2 (Feb 2014)