Month: February 2021

Structural engineers and designers have various material options from which to choose when evaluating aluminum alloys. These alloys offer numerous benefits and are created through the incorporation of alloying elements into the base aluminum metal. The focus here is on two alloys taken from the 2xxx and 6xxx series – 2024 aluminum and 6061 aluminum. As popular commercial metals, they both possess exceptional properties that make them ideal for many applications. Look no further than our supply at Howard Precision Metals to meet your 2024 and 6061 aluminum requirements. Our team has the experience to help you secure the aluminum alloy products you need for your industrial applications.

2024 Aluminum Alloy

Aluminum 2024 utilizes copper (Cu) as its primary alloying element. The chemical composition of 2024 aluminum reflects this: 0.6% Mn, 1.5% Mg, and 4.4% Cu. With the significant percentage of copper comprising 2024, the alloy’s corrosion resistance drops significantly, but its strength increases at the same time. To offset the corrosion resistance disadvantage, finished machined parts like manifold blocks are often hard coat anodized, and in sheet metal applications the surface if is often covered with a cladding, which is a corrosion resistance metal made from either pure aluminum or another aluminum alloy resistant to corrosion. Alclad products are available for application to 2024 aluminum alloys to take care of the corrosion resistance issue.

6061 Aluminum Alloy

Aluminum 6061 aluminum is one of the most popular alloys on the market for designers and possesses excellent characteristics for many applications. These features include high strength, and good machinability, weldability, and corrosion resistance. Coming from the 6xxx series of aluminum alloys, it uses silicon and magnesium as its primary alloying elements. Its chemical composition is as follows: 97.9 Al, 1.0% Mg, 0.6% Si, 0.28% Cu, and 0.2% Cr. It also has a density of 0.0975 lb/in3 (2.7 g/cm3). The process of heat treating is part of the production process to increase the strength of this alloy. After being heat-treated, 6061 aluminum, including 6061 aluminum plate is ideal for many applications, including structural machine components, electronics, manifolds, and more.

Comparing 2024 and 6061 Modulus of Elasticity

The modulus of elasticity of 2024 aluminum is greater than that of 6061 aluminum. The modulus of elasticity identifies the stiffness of the alloy or its degree of elasticity. Materials with a high modulus of elasticity can handle higher levels of stress when force creates a permanent change in shape. Materials with a low modulus of elasticity are less elastic more easily prone to brittle fracture. As a result, 2024 aluminum alloys are the better option for application that require high strength under load.

Comparing 2024 and 6061 Yield Strength

The yield strength of a material is the minimum level of stress that will cause its permanent deformation. It is the point at which the material yields to this condition. The yield strength of 2024 aluminum is greater than 6061 aluminum (324 MPa > 276 MPa). For this reason, 2024 is commonly used for aircraft aluminum applications. If strength is not the main concern, then 6061 may be considered, since it is also strong and possesses many beneficial properties.

Comparing 2024 and 6061 Fatigue Strength

The fatigue strength of a material indicates the endurance of the material against cyclical (repetitive loading). Aircraft performance and operating conditions (landing, takeoff, temperature fluctuations) often induces these types of stresses. Aluminum 2024 had a higher fatigue strength than 6061 (138 MPa > 96.5 Mpa — based on 500,000,000 loading cycles) and so is used in these applications.

Comparing 2024 and 6061 Machinability

Machinability measures the degree to which metals respond to tooling. Over recent years machine tools have made significant advancements and typically if you ask any machinist, they will say all wrought Aluminum alloys are pretty easy to machine. The most common wrought Aluminum alloys are 6061, 2024, and 7075. When ranking the machinability of these 3 alloys, 7075 is the best, followed closely by 2024, and then 6061. However. defining the term machinability has taken a new path in recent years as some machinist will tell you it is not just about how the metal chips, but how it holds tolerance when machining. All three alloys are heat treated to produce the strength properties they possess, and typically the higher the strength, the higher the stress. Hence 6061 might not chip as well as 2024 or 7075, but when working with thinner plates, you are less likely to experience dimensional instability with 6061 when milling the thickness of a plate. For projects that require machining operations, 6061 aluminum is still a great option if you don’t need the strength of 2024 or 7075.

Comparing 2024 and 6061 Hardness

The hardness of a metal measures the resilience of a material and specifically its resistance to local deformation and its surface quality. Alloys 6061 and 2024 have sufficient ductility to yield under stress instead of breaking or shattering. However, these alloys are also sufficiently hard to resist smaller stresses. Aluminum 6061 is ideal for use with machined parts due to the fact it does not cause damage to machine tools and when polished, displays a semi-gloss finish. Aluminum 2024 functions well as an aircraft alloy due to its hardness – it must resist yielding to outside forces from elements such as rain, dirt and other flying debris).

Regardless of whether you need 2024 aluminum plate, 6061 aluminum plate, or other forms of aluminum alloy, including bar or plate, we have you covered at Howard Precision Metals. Our team will provide you with the technical data to make an educated decision on the best aluminum alloy to meet the requirements of your applications. For more information about our supply of aluminum alloys and our capabilities to meet your material needs, give us a call today at 800.444.0311 or request a quote using the convenient form on our website.

How does one differentiate their job shop from others on the web? Well lets first start with admitting your first goal is to be recognized by Google. Google is the largest search engine by far with over 92% of all searches online happening on Google.

Unlike many other companies with websites, machine shops are not selling tangible products, they are selling a service so you cannot increase your rankings through ecommerce hits. For example, McMaster Carr has tremendous traffic on their site because 1) they sell thousands of items, all manufacturing related in one place and 2) everything listed has a detailed description that takes you right to the item you want to buy. A machine shop must define their services and differentiate them from every other machine shop in order to be found before the thousands of similar machine shops out there.

Google’s goal is to help the users find what they are looking for quickly, so you as a business owner need to help them understand what it is that differentiates your company from other machine shops. Bringing users to your site is only part of it. Google judges how long people stay on your site, and how many pages they navigate through, so you need to keep the user interested enough to read your content. It is all about good content. Google has web crawlers that are looking for keywords, phrases, tagged photos and in addition to rating you on how many hits you get and how long a person stays on your site, they are judging your content to make sure you match up with the person’s search criteria. What’s most important to the search engine is the quality of information and the relevance to the user. Quantity only matters if each bit of information helps the user answer a question or complete an objective.

As an aluminum supplier, we sell to many 10-man machine shops. Most of them don’t have the marketing budget to have an elaborate website created, but they are missing the boat if they don’t recognize what a powerful sales tool a website can be. I decided to write this blog for two reasons. 1) It took me years to understand what is important on a website, and if I can help my customers grow, we will all grow. 2) I love manufacturing and want to see it thrive in the U.S. I believe a country needs to make things to compete on a global basis and here in the U.S. the job shop is part of our manufacturing supply chain.

So here is my list of key components you should have on your website and by the way you should not give this list to your teenage kids and tell them to make it right. Nobody knows your business like you do as an owner. When writing blogs, write them with the love of your business in mind.

• You need a page dedicated to your equipment list. Not an attached downloadable file and not a picture of your list from a brochure you hand out. It needs to be written into the web page. Include make, model, and year of the machine as well as any upgrades like live tooling or robotics that are not standard to that model. This is important because if an OEM is making a part in house, and is looking to offload some work, they will search on those machine specifications trying to find equipment that matches what they are currently running their parts on. It’s also important to make sure this equipment list is unique to you. Do not simply copy and paste from a competitor’s site. This is called duplicate content and will trigger search engines to not want to rank your page.
• Have a frequently asked questions page and answer them in detail. It is important that potential customers see your manufacturing processes, business ethics, quality commitment match up with theirs. The buyers we deal with are getting younger and not as apt to pick up the phone. Instead, they feel they can find everything they need on a website. Make it easy to find everything they need on your site so you are not discounted too quickly. Many OEMS require ISO and other quality certifications so make sure that is clearly on your home page and easy to find. FAQs also are hugely valuable to search engines because of the ever-growing population who use voice search. Want to have Siri, Alexa or Google mention your site? FAQs is a great place to start.
• Write Blogs on your website that not only educates your customers but makes them look to you as a resource of information. Weirdly, less promotion equals a better chance to rank in Google. You want your blogs to give away valuable information for free. Then, because the user will have liked what they read, that visitor should navigate the rest of your site and if you are a resource they need, they are much more likely to contact you now that you opened as a resourceful company versus overly salesy.
• Lastly social media is all the hype these days, but currently is does not make that much of a difference in the eyes of google if you have a Facebook page or Twitter account. The fact is people of our breed in manufacturing are going to go to the web to find a machining partner. Certainly, posting your blogs on LinkedIn manufacturing groups may bring new eyes to your site and company, but it is far more important that your website tells your story.

Traffic is good, but ultimately, we want the customer to call us and make a connection. Think of your website as the salesman that never sleeps or a cold call waiting to happen. You just never know where your next big customer is going to come from. Hoping mine comes from here.