Decomposition in Al-Zn alloys: Part II. Decomposition during continuous cooling

A small angle X-ray scattering study (SAS) has been made of decomposition during contin uous cooling in four binary Al-Zn alloys with compositions spanning the miscibility gap and in two ternary alloys, each containing 22 at. pct Zn plus small amounts of Sn and Mg. Plots of logλ _m (wavelength receiving maximum amplification during the quench)vs logQ (quench rate) yield slopes of approximately -1/3 for all alloys, indicating that coarsening plays an important role during the quench. In addition, measurements of integrated area under the SAS spectra indicate that decomposition is essentially complete in the quenched condition for all of the alloys studied.