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Acta Metall Sin  2015, Vol. 51 Issue (12): 1425-1434    DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2015.00063
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INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT THERMOMECHANICAL PROCESSES ON THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF Al-Mg-Si-Cu ALLOY SHEETS
Yan ZHANG,Mingxing GUO,Hui XING,Fei WANG,Xiaofeng WANG,Jishan ZHANG,Linzhong ZHUANG
State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing,Beijing 100083
Cite this article: 

Yan ZHANG,Mingxing GUO,Hui XING,Fei WANG,Xiaofeng WANG,Jishan ZHANG,Linzhong ZHUANG. INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT THERMOMECHANICAL PROCESSES ON THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF Al-Mg-Si-Cu ALLOY SHEETS. Acta Metall Sin, 2015, 51(12): 1425-1434.

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Abstract  

To reduce the weight of car body, Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloys are becoming increasingly attractive as a candidate for material substitution used to produce the outer body panels of automobiles because of their favorable bake-hardening response. However, the formability still needs to be further improved compared to steels. In this work, the effect of the thermomechanical processing on the mechanical properties and microstructure of Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy is studied through tensile test, OM, SEM and TEM observation, as well as EBSD characterization. The results reveal that there is almost no change in both strengths and strain-hardening exponent n of the sheets in T4P condition after different thermomechanical processing, but the average plasticity strain ratio r-, planar anisotropy ∆r and elongations in the three directions show obvious differences. The sheet undergone hot rolling, cold rolling, intermediate annealing, cold rolling and solution (processing Ⅱ) has a better formability (r-= 0.6187) and a weaker planar anisotropy than that subjected to hot rolling, intermediate annealing and then cold rolling before solution treatment (processing I). Although the particle stimulated nucleation (PSN) effect of processing I is remarkable during solution treatment, due to the appropriate controlling cold deformation and distribution of second-phase particles with different sizes in processing Ⅱ, most of the recrystallization grains are equiaxial and the recrystallization texture is only consisted of CubeND, Cube and H with a low intensity. At last, according to the relationship between the microstructure and the thermomechanical processing, the microstructure evolution model during different thermomechanical processes is established.

Key words:  Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy      thermomechanical processing      formability      recrystallization texture      modelling     
Fund: Supported by National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No.2013-AA032403), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.51571023 and 51301016), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos.FRFTP-14-097A2 and FRF-TP-15-051A3) and Beijing Laboratory of Metallic Materials and Processing for Modern Transportation (No. FRF-SD-B-005B)

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https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2015.00063     OR     https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2015/V51/I12/1425

Fig.1  Stress-strain curves of T4P treated Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloys with processing I (a) and processing Ⅱ (b) in the different directions
Table 1  Mechanical properties of the T4P treated alloys in different directions
Fig.2  SEM images of tensile fracture of T4P treated alloy sheets with processing I (a, b) and processing Ⅱ (c, d) in the longitudinal (a, c) and transverse (b, d) directions
Fig.3  OM images of microstructure evolutions of the Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy during two thermomechanical processes

(a) homogenization (b) hot rolling

(c) processing I, intermediate annealing (d) processing Ⅱ, intermediate annealing

(e) processing I, cold rolling (f) processing Ⅱ, cold rolling

(g) processing I, solution (h) processing Ⅱ, solution

Fig.4  SEM images (a, b) and EDS analysis of point A (c) and point B (d) of coarse second-phase particles in the alloys with processing I (a, c, d) and processing Ⅱ (b)
Fig.5  TEM images of the cold rolled alloys with processing I (inset shows the SAED pattern of particle indicated by arrow) (a) and processing Ⅱ (b)
Fig.6  EBSD analysis on grain orientation map (a, b) and grain size distributions (c, d) of solution treated alloys with processing I (a, c) and processing Ⅱ (b, d) (CubeND—Cube orientation rotated a certain angle around the normal direction (ND), Cube—{001}<100> orientation, P—{011}<112> orientation, Goss—{110}<001> orientation)
Processing Diameter Average
<0.2 μm >0.2 μm
I 2.78×106 5.78×105 3.36×106
1.41×106 7.95×105 2.20×106
Table 2  Density of fine particles in the cold rolled alloys with different processing
Fig.7  Orientation distribution function (ODF) maps of solution treated alloys with processing I (a) and processing Ⅱ (b)
Fig.8  Schematics of microstructure evolution of alloy during processing I (a~d) and processing Ⅱ (e~h)

(a, e) hot rolling (b, f) intermediate annealing (c, g) cold rolling (d, h) solution treatment

  
Processing CubeND P Cube Goss H
Intensity Content Intensity Content Intensity Content Intensity Content Intensity Content
I 5.50 15.9% 2.66 9.52% 3.63 5.79% 2.97 6.29% - -
2.11 9.54% - - 2.04 6.55% - - 3.95 5.14%
Table 3  Intensity and content of recrystallization textures in the solution treated alloy
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