Influence of scandium on weldability of 7010 aluminium alloy

The commercial 7000 series aluminium alloys are based on medium strength Al–Zn–Mg and high strength Al–Zn–Mg–Cu systems. The medium strength alloys are weldable, whereas the high strength alloys are non-weldable. This is because the amount of copper present in these alloys gives rise to hot cracking during solidification of welds. As a result, the high strength Al–Zn–Mg– Cu base alloys are not used for applications where joining of components by welding is an essential step. In the present study, using a combination of qualitative Houldcroft test and quantitative Varestraint test, it is shown that a small addition of scandium to the commercial 7010 alloy reduces the hot cracking susceptibility during solidification of welds produced by the gas tungsten arc welding process. The improvement in weldability is found to be the result of the considerable grain refinement in the weld structure following the scandium addition. The results of microhardness and tensile tests are further described within the context of the present work to demonstrate that the 7010+Sc welds also exhibit a combination of improved strength and ductility.