Thermo-mechanical responses, mechanical properties and microstructural evolution during hot and warm rolling of AA5086

In the work, warm and hot rolling behaviors of AA5086 were studied. Firstly, thermo-mechanical responses of the alloy were determined employing mathematical modeling performed by the finite element software, Abaqus/Explicit, and then the effects of process parameters including initial temperature and rolling speed on the distributions of temperature and plastic strain were investigated. In the next stage, rolling experiments at elevated temperatures were conducted under various deformation conditions and the changes in microstructure and mechanical properties were evaluated by means of tensile testing, hardness measurements, microstructural observations and the results of mathematical modeling. The results of mechanical testing showed that yield stress and hardness of the rolled plate decreased by increasing the rolling temperature and strain rate. Furthermore, non-uniform distributions of plastic strain and temperature were developed along thickness direction during rolling operations particularly for the case of hot rolling processes. As a result, it resulted in a non-uniform microstructure development in this direction. Furthermore, partially recrystallized structure was clearly detected within the specimen rolled at 360°C while the fully recrystallized grains was observed for the case of rolling with initial temperature of 480°C.

Keywords:

Aluminum alloys , Warm rolling , Finite element analysis , Mechanical properties , Microstructures