This special issue of the Materials and Manufacturing
Processes Journal is intended to highlight a selection of papers that were presented at the First International Conference on Advances in Production and Processing Ε½ . of Aluminium APPA '2001 organised by University of Bahrain. The conference was held during 12α15 February 2001 in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. The aim of this special issue is to report recent advances in engineering and technology related to production and processing of aluminium and its alloys. In these papers, a variety of topics including mechanical behaviour, thermal and mechanical treatments, joining and weldability of Al-alloys, MMCs and other related issues are addressed.
The first two papers by Srivatsan and Srivatsan et al. present experimental investigations of the cyclic fatigue and fracture behaviour of aluminium alloys 2524 and 7055. In the third paper, Bekheet et al. examine the effect of ageing on hardness and fatigue behaviour of 2024 Al-alloyrSiC composites. The fourth paper by Zamzam et al. investigates the effect of nickel content on thermal fatigue resistance of AlαNi turbine blades. Jahromi, in paper number five, shows that spray-cast SS70 aluminium alloy offers a combination of low-cost manufacturing with superior creep performance compared to ingot-cast 7075 alloy. Zaki, the author of the sixth paper, examines the degradation of aluminium metal matrix composites in salt water and its control. The seventh paper by Shauib reports on the effect of composition and temper on the mechanical properties and formability of a corrosion resistant modified Alα2.5Mg alloy.