Effect of heat treatment on microstructure and properties of hot-extruded nickel-aluminum bronze

The effect of heat treatment on the microstructure and properties of a hot-extruded nickel-aluminum bronze was investigated. Experimental materials were heat treated through different processes, including quenching, normalizing, aging and annealing, and their microstructure, corrosion resistance and mechanical properties were characterized. It is found that quenching causes all beta phase transformed into beta' phase, however, normalizing causes beta phase transformed into beta' alpha and kappa phases. When the quenched sample is aged, fine kappa phase is precipitated from the as-quenched microstructure of beta' phase. Annealing causes the transformation of beta' into alpha and kappa phases. The results of mechanical property tests show that quenching, normalizing and aging improve the tensile strength and hardness of the experimental material, with a corresponding fall in elongation. Annealing raises the elongation but reduces the tensile strength and hardness. Furthermore, corrosion resistance of nickel-aluminum bronze ranks from worse to better in the following order: aged, quenched, normalized, hot-extruded and annealed. However, with the exposure time of corrosion test increasing, the difference of average corrosion rate between those nickel-aluminum bronzes turns small.