Temporal evolution of coherent precipitates in an aluminum alloy W319: A correlative anisotropic small angle X-ray scattering, transmission electron microscopy and atom-probe tomography study

Abstract Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), transmission electron-microscopy (TEM), and atom-probe tomography (APT) are utilized correlatively to study the evolution of nanometer length-scale coherent precipitates in a commercial age-hardenable aluminum alloy, W319. SAXS, with its high-field-of-view and resultant large statistics, perfectly complements TEM and APT at the nanometer length-scale. The combined results provide a comprehensive description of the evolution of the fine precipitates. W319 exhibits two types of fine coherent precipitates on aging namely, θ′ and Q, whose temporal evolution has been studied using time-resolved in situ SAXS analyses at three different aging temperatures: 438, 463, and 533 K. Complementary information about the morphology, dimensions and number density of the precipitates were determined from ex situ APT and TEM analyses. Coherent precipitates from a single grain of the α-Al-matrix of W319 give rise to an anisotropic SAXS signal, which is subsequently simulated, taking into account the relative orientation of the sample and the crystallographic orientation relationships of the different precipitates. The simulated anisotropic SAXS intensity, based on the results from APT and TEM, is validated utilizing the experimentally obtained 2D SAXS patterns. This permits us to determine the dimensions and number densities of the precipitates from anisotropic SAXS signals, and a complete quantitative analysis of the in situ temporal evolution of the coherent precipitates is performed. Additionally, the present study demonstrates an alternative technique for extracting structural parameters from anisotropic SAXS analyses. The methodology presented herein will be useful for age-hardening analyses of commercial age-hardenable Al-based alloys and Ni-based super alloys.