Evaluation of the effect of heat treatment parameters on mechanical properties of architectured steel incorporated low carbon steel and aluminum 6061

Employing lightweight steels in the transportation industry, especially the automotive industry, has received lots of attention in today’s time, and much research has been done to replace the low carbon steel used in the transportation industry with lighter materials. In this regard, in the present study, a new class of lightweight steels called architectured steels involving alternating layered structure of steel and aluminum was produced. In this process cold rolling process was employed to make a connection between a simple low carbon steel and 6061 aluminum alloy. In order to improve the inter-layer connection and properties of the product, the prepared samples were subjected to annealing treatment at different time (30-120 min) and temperatures (400-500° C). Finally, after examining the conditions of different annealing processes, the best cycle to achieve an appropriate combination of strength and ductility was determined. In the end, the best mechanical properties (610 MPa UTS and 16.1% elongation) was obtained in the specimen annealed at 400°C for 90 min.