Role of Indian Ordnance Factories in the Development of some of the Important Cast and Wrought Aluminium Alloys during the last three decades

Abstract

Aluminium is one of the newest of the major indus-trial metals. More than a century back, in 1954, the first industrial process of reduction by Henri Saint - Claire Deville was estabilished and the 75th anniversary of the discovery by Paul Heroult in France and Charless Hall in America of the electrolytic process of extraction was cele-brated in 1961. Its earlier industrial development follo-wed the same traditional pattern of the older metals, but in the first decade of 20th century certain aluminium alloys were found to exhibit age-hardening properties which were until then/quite unknown. The discovery by Alfred Wilm of the effect of quenching the solid solution alloy, with its subsequent ability to strengthen by prec-ipitation opened up new and exciting prospects. New fami-lies of aluminium alloys have now been developed and brou-ght into successful commercial use. The use of optical and electron microscopes to investigate the structural changes and the adoption of X-ray crystallography, all contributed to the general under- standing of the solution-treatment and age-hardening phenomena.