Currently, there is a tendency towards breaking through conventional 5000 series aluminum alloys framework and designing heat-treatable Al–Mg based alloys with the improved mechanical properties. Here, based on a small amount of experimental work and our previously developed Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) framework, the authors systematically and efficiently optimize the Zn content and two-step aging treatment process in the heat-treatable Al–Mg–Zn alloys. It is found that the addition of 3.0 wt.% Zn can lower the nucleation activation energy, promote the precipitation of the T phase, and thus enhance and accelerate the age-hardening response of Al–Mg–Zn alloys. Different from the single-step aging process, the pre-aging treatment leads to a large number of fine and dispersive T precipitates due to the precipitation of numerous, stable and dispersive precursors. Further, we optimized two-stage aging treatment for the Al-5.1Mg-3.0Zn alloy which enables the peak-aged yield strength to increase by 21.1% as compared to that in the single-step aging process. This research presents an efficient strategy to design new-generation aluminum alloys via combining the key experimental data and an ICME framework.

目前，有突破传统5000系列铝合金框架，设计具有改进机械性能的可热处理Al-Mg基合金的趋势。在这里，基于少量的实验工作和我们之前开发的集成计算材料工程 (ICME) 框架，作者系统地、有效地优化了可热处理 Al-Mg-Zn 合金中的 Zn 含量和两步时效处理工艺. 结果表明，添加 3.0 wt.% Zn 可以降低成核激活能，促进 T 相的析出，从而增强和加速 Al-Mg-Zn 合金的时效硬化响应。与单步老化工艺不同，由于大量稳定分散的前驱体的沉淀，预时效处理导致大量细小分散的T沉淀。此外，我们优化了Al-5.1Mg-3.0Zn合金的二级时效处理，与单步时效工艺相比，峰值时效屈服强度提高了21.1%。这项研究提出了一种通过结合关键实验数据和 ICME 框架来设计新一代铝合金的有效策略。