Effect of cerium and praseodymium additions on impact toughness of AA5083 alloy at room temperature and sub-zero-temperature

Abstract

The structural components made of AA5083 alloy are sometimes subjected to shock loadings during their usage. Thus, high impact toughness is a desirable property in this state for proper application. Therefore, modified AA5083 alloys with rare earth elements REEs (REEs = Ce and Pr ) additions, that have been produced by in situ casting technique under inert gas (Argon) condition has strong tendency to improve the impact toughness of AA5083 alloy. The amount of REEs (REEs = Ce, and Pr) additions was in the range of (0 ≤ wt. % Of REEs ≤ 1). The tested standard specimens were subjected to Charpy impact testing at room temperature and sub-zero temperature. The obtained results were qualitatively and quantitatively interpreted Quantitatively, it was found that the inclusion of Ce and Pr additions improved the impact toughness of the AA5083 alloy. More so, it was observed the impact toughness increased with increasing percentage of Ce or Pr. It was noticed that the performance effectiveness improvement of Ce addition was more than Pr addition. Regarding the influence of temperature on impact energy, it was observed that the impact energy values for the modified AA5083 alloys were slightly higher in the case of sub-zero temperature than in the room temperature. Qualitatively and based on the SEM images of fracture surfaces, it was found that the nature of the fracture was ductile fracture for all the tested samples.