AN ELECTRONIC APPROACH TO THE PREDICTION OF THE MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES OF ALUMINUM-ALLOYS

A quantitative method for predicting the mechanical properties of aluminium alloys was proposed on the basis of the molecular orbital calculation of electronic structures. A new parameter which is the s orbital energy level, Mk, of alloying elements in aluminium was introduced into this method. This parameter correlated with the electronegativity and the atomic radius of elements, and probably represented the magnitude of dislocation interactions with solute atoms in the alloys. The compositional average of this parameter varied linearly with the yield strength and the tensile strength of commercially available wrought aluminium alloys with multiple components. Both the strain hardening and the precipitation hardening of the alloys were also treated well in terms of this parameter alone. it was shown that this electronic method was very convenient for designing high-performance aluminium alloys efficiently.