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Hardening heat treatments invariably involve heating to a sufficiently high temperature to dissolve solute-rich precipitates. The metal is then rapidly cooled to avoid reprecipitation; often this is done by quenching in water or oil. The concentration of solute dissolved in the metal is now much greater than the equilibrium concentration. This produces what is known as solid-solution hardening, but the alloy can usually be hardened appreciably more by aging to allow a very fine precipitate to form. Aging is done at an elevated temperature that is still well below the temperature at which the precipitate will dissolve. If the alloy ...(100 of 18633 words)