Thermal Conductivity of AL6061 (any temper, preferably O) as a Fcn of Temperature

[mizr3en]

Hi,

I have been looking for thermal conductivity (k) data for aluminum alloy 6061 for some time now. There are some books in the local university library which have k as a function of temperature but 6061 isn't in there. The most comprehensive source I've found so far is (in case anyone is looking for k(T) of other materials):
Thermal conductivity : metallic elements and alloys, edited by Y. S. Touloukian (1970) - there's a newer edition, possibly 6061 is in there?

matweb.com has been suggested in this archived post, but k is only at STP
I tried to look on NIST.gov but it looks like all of their thermophysical data is of hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds.
EES only contains data for 3 alloys of aluminum.
SolidWorks doesn't have temperature dependent data.
ANSYS only has pure aluminum.

Any sources or information would be appreciated, ideally I would be able to view the .jpg/.doc attached to the archived forum- if anyone knows how to get this that would be a huge help!

Thanks,

Nick

[zeke]

Over what range of temperature and at what accuracy and, if you don't mind ,what is the application??

[mizr3en]

Thanks for getting back to me. I need data to range from room temperature to temperatures around 450K, preferably higher. The accuracy doesn't need to be any more than 5 percent, I just want to make sure it doesn't increase or decrease significantly from STP. I am trying to analyze the heat losses through a heater block in a jet impingement application. We are also calculating surface temperatures based on the thermal conductivity of aluminum with thermocouples not directly on the surface and are getting inconsistent results... we are having other issues besides material properties but I figured this could help eliminate some possible issues.

Thanks,
Nick

[zeke]

I also couldn't find al 6061, but I did find an alloy very close with Al-97%, Mn-1%,Si- 1%,Mg-1%

T/k--0C/101, 100C/109,200C/118

T- deg C
k-BTU/hr-ft-degF

Ref:Handbook Heat Transfer,Rosenow and Hartnett,McGraw Hill,1973.

I would use this for your problem since the literature I read indicates that unlike electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity is a weak function of %composites except for copper which is not there.

[mizr3en]

Thank you for this information, I didn't see this table in the handbook until you pointed it out to me. The library at my school has the 1985 edition as well which I was hoping might have different materials, but it actually had much less information. I did not come across any information about the conductivity of alloys not varying with different compositions. Did the literature say specifically aluminum alloys don't vary unless there's copper present? Was the literature Rohsenow's book where the material properties came from? If so, can you tell me the page number because I couldn't find much information on solid thermal conductivity in there.
As you can see from the chart I attached, 6061-O and Rohsenow's data match up at room temperature but data from Touloukian for J 51 and RR 131D (no idea what these are, but their material composition is similar) have the same amount of copper as 6061 yet different room temperature thermal conductivities than 6061-O. This is why I am curious about the statement about copper composition having an influence on thermal conductivity. Anyway, at temperatures greater than room temperature it looks like the thermal conductivity for aluminum alloys of similar composition increase at approximately the same rate so I am satisfied with the data. I appreciate you looking into this, if you forget where you read about the copper composition don't worry about trying to track it down, I was just curious because I didn't come across this.

Nick
Aluminum alloy composition.jpgThermal conductivity comparison.jpg

[tsteele93]

According to this chart http://www.engineersedge.com/properties_of_metals.htm it looks like the thermal conductivity of AL6061, Temper-O is 180 W/m-c.

tsteele93