Development of coloring alloys: Color design for lightweight Al-Mg-Si alloys

Abstract

Here, novel lightweight Al alloys were designed with an objective to achieve diverse color range and improved mechanical properties. The alloy design strategy was based on a scientific color expression method controlling the microstructural attributes, such as constitutive phases, and their morphology (length-scale). The intrinsic difference in colors between the constitutive phases, their spatial arrangement/dimension, and fraction play a critical role in determining chromatic characteristic of the alloys. Our current research demonstrates the feasibility of the present color alloy design concept with three groups which allows blue color diversification and mechanical properties for ultra-light aluminum-magnesium-silicon alloys.

Keywords

• Color alloy
• Intermetallic compounds
• CIE L*a*b*
• Color coordinate system