For a long time, steel alloys were considered as one of the best materials in most of engineering projects, however in many applications, due to different needs, steel has been replaced by aluminum alloys. To meet the needs of each application there are several combinations of alloy elements and sometimes some of these elements make it possible to carry out heat treatments. In this project, the effects of solution heat treatment and aging were studied in aluminum alloys samples with different chemical compositions, which are AlSi7Cu3Mg, AlSi9Cu3(Fe)(Zn) and AlSi7Mg0,3. The hardness values of the alloys were evaluated without any heat treatment, solution heat treated, and artificially aged. With the application of heat treatments, it was possible to observe that each alloy responded differently to the heat treatments due to the presence or lack of hardening elements. Thus, the alloy that had the greatest increase in hardness after the solution heat treatment and artificial aging was the AlSi7Cu3Mg alloy with an increase of 13%, followed by the AlSi9Cu3(Fe)(Zn) alloy with an increase of 8% and, finally, the AlSi7Mg alloy, which did not obtain hardness increase. It has also been possible to notice that alloys containing copper respond well to solution heat treatment and artificial aging when increasing hardness is desired.
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