_Age Hardening
Age hardening, also called precipitation hardening are heat treatment methods to increase the hardness, i.e. the hardness of alloys, i.e. the mechanical resistance of the material to the harder test piece, as well as the strength, which in turn describes the mechanical resistance, with which a material meets plastic deformation or cleavage.
Alloys are generally known metallic materials that are made of at least two elements or materials, whose solubility or absorbency depends on multiple aspects: The type and number of alloying elements, relative mass of the total mass of the material mixture and the temperature.
If the temperature is lowered, the solubility of the alloying elements or material mixture also reduces. The alloy is therefore initially heated until all materials required for the precipitation dissolve. During the quenching, where the material experiences sudden cooling, a certain crystalline structure forms, which hardens the material but also makes it become brittle.
Through subsequent aging, the diffusion of the elements, which is based on the inherent thermal motion of the particles, can be made up for, i.e. the structure acquires an optimal material structure due to renewed thermal treatment.