A facile electron microscopy method for measuring precipitate volume fractions in AlCuMg alloys

Precipitate volume fraction is an important parameter to estimate the strength of precipitation-hardened metals. In this study, a facile method was applied to measure the precipitate volume fractions in an age-hardened AlCuMg alloy. In this method, the precipitate volume fraction values can be obtained by multiplying the volume precipitate number densities with the averaged precipitate volumes, which can be easily measured in scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Compared with the conventional method, in which the specimen thickness has to be measured in transmission electron microscopy, the method proposed in this study is more facile to perform.