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Dr. Dmitri Kopeliovich
Temper designation system is established by the International Alloy Designation System (IADS), based on the classification developed by Aluminum Association of the United States.
This designation system is accepted by most countries.
The temper designation system is used for both wrought and cast aluminum alloys.
Designation of temper is necessary for right selection of aluminum alloys, properties of which depend not only on their compositions but also on the heat treatment of the alloys and the cold work of the parts.
Suffixes used for the temper designation system are separated from the alloy designation by a hyphen (examples: 2618-T61, 3003-H14, 1100-O).
The temper designation system uses letters, determining the basic tempers and digits, following the letters, indicating the conditions of the basic tempers.
The temper designation scheme is shown in the figure.
Treatments T1, T2, T5 and T10 start from cooling from elevated temperature shaping process (hot rolling, forging, extrusion etc.). This cooling is not very fast, therefore the treatment may be considered as partial solution treatment.
Treatment H may use a third digit.
H_ _1 applies to products which are cold worked (strain hardened) less than amount required for a controlled H_ _ temper.
H112 applies to products which may acquire some temper from working at an elevated temperature and for which there are mechanical properties limits.
Treatment T may use additional digits (second, third and forth).
The second digit (not zero) may be added to T1…T10 for indication of a variation of heat treatment.
T_51, T_510, T_511 mean stress relief by stretching done after solution treatment or after cooling from elevated temperature shaping process.
T_52 means stress relief by compressing done after solution treatment or after cooling from elevated temperature shaping process.
T_54 means stress relief of die forgings by restriking cold in the finish die.
T_42, T_62 mean solution treatment from annealed (O) or as fabricated condition followed by natural (T_42) or artificial (T_62) aging.
