Study of Plastic Deformation in Binary Aluminum Alloys by Internal-Friction Methods

The damping capacity of several aluminum-copper alloys has been investigated during tensile elongation. This damping is shown to depend on strain rate, strain, temperature, alloy content, and heat treatment. A tentative hypothesis, based on the acceleration of solute atom diffusion by deformation-produced vacancies, is proposed to account for the observed behavior. Internal-friction maxima are observed in deformed aluminum and aluminum-copper alloys at -70 deg and -50 deg C. The peaks appear to be relatively insensitive to frequency and alloy content, but they disappear after annealing at temperatures nearing the recrystallization temperature.