A Characterization for the Hot Flow Behaviors of As-extruded 7050 Aluminum Alloy

Abstract

Abstract The deep understanding of flow behaviors of as-extruded 7050 aluminum alloy significantly contributes to the accuracy simulation for its various plastic forming processes. In order to obtain the improved Arrhenius-type equation with variable parameters for this alloy, a series of compression tests were performed at temperatures of 573 K, 623 K, 673 K, 723 K and strain rates of 0.01 s−1, 0.1 s−1, 1 s−1, 10 s−1 with a height reduction of 60% on Gleeble-1500 thermo-mechanical simulator. It is obvious that strain rate, strain and temperature all have a significant effect on the hot flow behaviors, and the true stress–true strain curves indicate three types after the peak value: decreasing gradually to a steady state with sustaining DRX softening till a balance with work hardening, decreasing continuously with sustaining increasing DRX softening beyond work hardening and maintaining higher stress level after the peak value with a balance between work hardening and DRV softening. Based on the experimental data, the improved Arrhenius-type constitutive model was established to predict the high temperature flow stress of as-extruded 7050 aluminum alloy. The accuracy and reliability of the improved Arrhenius-type model were further evaluated in terms of the correlation coefficient (R), here 0.98428, the average absolute relative error (AARE), here 3.5%. The results indicate that the improved Arrhenius-type constitutive model presents a good predictable ability.