AA AASA

Abstract

Introduction & Scope <br>Aluminum and its alloys offer an extremely wide range of capability and applicability, with a unique combination of advantages that make it the material of choice for numerous products and markets. It is the purpose of this presentation to (a) provide an overview of the various types of aluminum alloys that are available to engineers, designers, and others considering aluminum for new products or applications, and (b) to describe the properties and characteristics that make aluminum alloys so useful. <br>The breadth of individual alloys and of applications is so broad that it will be necessary to hit only the highlights and provide representative examples. For more detail on the alloys, their properties, and the applications, I refer you to the new textbook on the subject, "Aluminum: Technology, Applications, and Environment", by Dr. Dietrich G. Altenpohl. <br>In what follows, we will look first at the Aluminum Association Alloy and Temper Designation Systems, as these are the systems that make the tracking and recognition of the alloys and their characteristics relatively straightforward. Then we will begin an overview by alloy type, first for wrought alloys and then for cast alloys, covering the characteristics and most important applications of those alloys. By way of background, wrought alloys are those which are cast as ingot or billet and then mechanically worked by some process such as rolling, extrusion, or forgings to final form; cast alloys are those which are cast to final or near final form with out any mechanical working. The wrought and cast alloys, their properties and their applications are somewhat different and so we will discuss them separately.