Achieving high strength and superior ductility in Al–Si alloy by cold rolling and friction stir processing

Abstract

In the current work, the influence of heat treatment, rolling, and friction stir processing (FSP) on the microstructure, hardness, tensile behavior, and fracture mechanism of hypoeutectic Al–Si alloy were investigated. The FSP led to a reduction in the aspect ratio and increased the size and sphericity of particles. Also, fine silicon and Fe-rich particles were uniformly distributed in the matrix. With increasing the rotational speed, the size and aspect ratio of particles was decreased, and their sphericity was increased. The best morphology of Si particles (size of 2.23 µm, aspect ratio of 1.91, and sphericity of 0.682) had been obtained at the rotational speed of 800 rpm. The microhardness profiles of the FSPed samples were roughly homogeneous. After the cold rolling, the yield strength (YS), ultimate tensile strength (UTS), and energy absorption (EA) were enhanced to 288.7 MPa, 296.0 MPa, and 18.5 J/cm3, however, the total elongation (TE) was reduced to 6%. Interestingly, the YS, UTS, TE, and EA of all FSPed samples were much higher than that of the initial material. The 800–120 sample had the best tensile properties with YS, UTS, TE, and EA of 116.7 MPa, 235 MPa, 27.2%, and 57.9 J/cm3, representing 162%, 43%, 263%, and 395% improvement, respectively. The results of the fractography exhibited that the preferential cracks propagated perpendicularly to the loading direction along the Al/Si and Al/Fe-rich interfaces in the initial and heat-treated samples. In contrast, the crack planes of the rolled and FSPed samples were oriented around 45° with respect to the loading direction. The fracture of the initial, heat-treated, and rolled samples was dominated by cleavage mode. In contrast, the FSPed samples revealed a full ductile fracture.