Physical metallurgy of Aluminium Alloys

Aluminium is essentially a soft and weak metal which has to be strengthened by alloying with suitable elements. The elements which are added to aluminium in appreciable quantities to increase its strength and improve other properties are surprisingly limited to only four, namley, magnesium, silicon, copper and zinc.These are added singly or in combination. It may be oberved that these elements are situated close to aluminium in the periodic table. Magnesium and silicon are its close neighbours of alum- inium in the next period.