Texture and strain rate sensitivity analysis of solid solution and precipitation hardening aluminum alloys processed by repetitive corrugation and straightening

Abstract

The potential of improving the mechanical strength by the RCS process is evaluated on the 5754, 6061, and 7075 aluminum alloys, which present different hardening mechanisms related to their respective alloying elements. This work compares the evolution of the texture and the mechanical properties of the different alloys through the RCS processing. The mechanical properties were evaluated by micro-hardness measurements, tensile tests at different temperatures, and strain rates to evaluate the strain-rate sensitivity. The results showed that after two RCS passes, the 6061 and 5754 alloys showed a relatively high strain-rate sensitivity at 300°C. In addition, an increment of 27%, 22%, 15% in hardness was obtained for the 5754, 6061 and 7075 alloys, respectively. Showing the potential of improvement in the mechanical resistance due to the different hardening mechanism. Furthermore, the crystallographic texture was characterized by the obtention of pole figures by X-ray diffraction and the calculation of their orientation distribution functions. The results showed the same trend in the three aluminum alloys, i.e., the initial texture components were conserved, but the texturized volume decreased.