Effect of rolling mode on microstructure and plastic anisotropy of 6016 aluminum alloy sheet

Abstract

The effect of rolling mode on microstructure and plastic anisotropy of the Al-Mg-Si alloy sheets was investigated by means of earing test, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) techniques. The samples were subjected to three cold rolling modes: normal rolling (NR), transverse rolling (TR) and alternate rolling (AR) after hot rolling and annealing treatment. The results show that a strong cube {100}〈001〉 texture is formed after hot rolling and annealing treatment of the 6016 aluminum alloy. While the deformation textures significantly vary with the cold rolling modes. A strong β-fiber textures (copper,S and brass components) is dominant in NR and TR rolled sheets,the volume fraction of which is 38%-44%. In contrast, a cube component with a volume fraction of 12.2% is retained in the AR samples, and the deformation texture component is very weak. Therefore, the AR rolled sheet has the worst earing ratio of 7.1%. After the solution heat treatment, the earing ratio of AR sheets is significantly reduced to 2.76% due to the weak and random texture. While the earing ratio of NR and TR sheets is 6% and 8.16%, due to the same volume fraction of 9.12% strong cube textures. The recrystallized grain sizes of the NR, TR and AR rolled sheets are 23,25 μm and 22 μm, and the grain distribution of the AR alloy is the most uniform. It is shown that alternate rolling can effectively improve the microstructure uniformity and plastic anisotropy of 6016 aluminum alloy recrystallization sheet.

Keywords

• 6016 aluminum alloy
• rolling mode
• texture
• earing ratio
• anisotropy