I am making a device which uses a bent thin sheet of aluminum as a spring which provides a constant force. It must be made of aluminum. Over time the material will relax and the force of the spring will decrease. I am wondering if there would be a significant difference between the rate of creep in 6061 vs 5052. The material will be at room temperature and the force will be well below the yield strength of both materials.
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What is the operating temperature for the component? – alephzero May 24 '21 at 02:35
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1From the post: "The material will be at room temperature..." – fred_dot_u May 24 '21 at 08:48
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Good question, I'm curious about this too. [This ThomasNet review](https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/metals-metal-products/6061-aluminum-vs-5052-aluminum/) points out 6061 has higher yields strength, while 5052 has higher fatigue strength. Neither of these measures really answers the question though. – Pete W May 24 '21 at 18:33
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1This information may be in [this book](https://cds.cern.ch/record/576446/files/0871706326_TOC.pdf), which I haven't been able to access. – Chemomechanics May 24 '21 at 23:04
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here's a [paper](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1e95/fd4cfc141c58398c96e5ed352547d7cd7f3e.pdf) on cyclic creep behavior of 6061 (including both T6 and aged tempers), that shows some numbers. Up to 0.4% strain the hysteresis looks very mild. – Pete W May 24 '21 at 23:54
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(but this is low cycle, fairly high stress&strain, may not really apply here. maybe the references can help. note the first-cycle shape, in some cases may want to "break it in") – Pete W May 25 '21 at 00:09
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1If the force is "well below the yield strength" the creep at room temperature will be negligible. Since 6061 has significantly higher yield strength it will give you a bigger safety margin than 5052. Even if the loading was cyclic (which the OP says it is not) you would probably be looking at $10^9$ loading cycles before anything changed much. – alephzero May 25 '21 at 01:23