During a process development trial, two identical structural automotive parts were formed from a rolled sheet of commercial 6082 Al alloy by Hot Form Quench (HFQ). The rapid transitional contact between the sheet and the die set during die closing imposed a range of complex cooling histories on different locations in the parts. After in-die quenching, one HFQ part was naturally aged at room temperature, while the other was peak-aged at 185 °C for 7 h. The microstructure was compared at two extreme locations; the flange, where die contact is instantaneous leading to immediate rapid cooling, and the sidewall, where the material cools more slowly in air before rapid quenching. After HFQ, some small quench induced grain boundary precipitates were observed in the sidewall specimen but not in the flange.

However, subsequent artificial ageing led to a convergence of the microstructures. Consequently, hardness was found to be constant at both locations, and no loss of hardening potential was observed in either case compared with T6 sheet. Samples of the as-received material were subjected to selected quench-hold-quench-age experiments to mimic the HFQ microstructures. Tensile tests showed that the ductility and failure mechanism is insensitive to the small differences in grain boundary microstructure as observed in the HFQ component.

在工艺开发试验中，通过热成型淬火（HFQ）用商品化的6082铝合金轧制板形成了两个相同的汽车结构部件。在模具闭合过程中，板材与模具之间的快速过渡接触在零件的不同位置施加了一系列复杂的冷却历史。模内淬火后，一个HFQ零件在室温下自然老化，而另一个在185°C时效老化7 h。比较了两个极端位置的微观结构：法兰与模具之间的接触瞬间导致迅速冷却，侧壁与材料在空气中冷却较慢之前迅速冷却的侧壁。HFQ后，在侧壁试样中观察到一些小的淬火引起的晶界沉淀，但在凸缘中没有观察到。

但是，随后的人工时效导致微观结构的趋同。因此，发现在两个位置处的硬度都是恒定的，并且与T6片材相比，在两种情况下均未观察到硬化电位的损失。对所接收材料的样品进行选定的淬火-淬火-淬火年龄实验，以模拟HFQ的微结构。拉伸试验表明，如在HFQ组件中观察到的，延展性和破坏机理对晶界微观结构的细微差异不敏感。