Investigation of Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Valuation Under Different Heat Treatment Parameters of AA6060 Alloy Used in Crash Boxes

The crash boxes used in cars are the connection elements that absorb the impact energy that occurs in the event of an accident and provide the energy released by the accident to the car at the minimum level (Sharifi et al. in Thin-Walled Structures 89:42-53, 2015). In the study, the effects of heat treatments on the mechanical properties of the crash boxes were investigated in order to reach the optimum levels of AA6060 alloy box profiles produced by extrusion method. F, T4, T5, T6, and T7 heat treatments were applied to crash boxes. As a result of compression loads, force-displacement graphs were obtained and total absorbed energies were calculated from these graphs. Samples that were able to absorb the highest energy in samples produced for use in crash boxes were obtained in T6 heat treatment.