- By:
- Kesler, Michael S; Thompson, Michael J; Weiss, David; Manuel, Michele
- Page Number:
- 246-251
- Book Title:
- Light Metals 2025
- Publication Date:
- March 12, 2026
- Publisher Location:
- Springer, Cham, Switzerland
- Conference Name:
- TMS 2025: TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
- Conference Location:
- Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America
- Conference Sponsor:
- TMS
- View DOI Listing:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80676-6_32
Abstract
In the aluminum heat treatment sector, large resistive batch furnaces are used for many heat treatment processes and are generally always running, operating at approximately 20–30% efficiency. The primary avenue for energy savings lies in shortening heat treatment times, which can be 24+ hours for solutionizing (450–625 °C) and aging treatments (150–250 ℃), depending on the alloy and specification requirements. The application of high magnetic fields (80%, while achieving ~10% improvement in microhardness, and these improvements persisted after longer thermal exposures simulating use. The microstructural evolution and resulting properties will be discussed.
