Overaging is a result of annealing for extremely long times which results in coarsening of second phases used for strengthening age-or precipitation hardenable alloys. This is undesirable especially if attempts are made to strengthen the alloy with fine second phases.

Learning Outcomes for this Section

After completing this section, you should be able to:

• describe what happens during overaging
• describe the phenomenon of Oswald Ripening
• explain why overaging is a softening mechanism
• explain why overaging is detrimental to material properties

Pre-Requisites

You should be familiar with the concepts covered in: Solution Treatment; Precipitation Hardening;