B13-O-06Evolution of texture in 6016 aluminum alloy during processing

Abstract

In the continuing quest for car weight reduction, the 6xxx series of Al-Mg-Si alloys has been widely used for automotive body panels. However, improvement of the alloy's formability and surface quality is still required during a practical producing progress, which needs deep understanding of the relatively microstructural evolution and control. In this work, the 6016 (Al-0.43%Mg-1.18%Si-0.04%Cu) alloy after homogenizing treatment and hot-rolling was carried out three designed processes in terms of combinations of cold-rolling and intermediate annealing and continuous annealing. Microstructure evolution, particularly, texture evolution in various states of materials has been quantitatively studied by SEM-EBSD and XRD. The results showed that the texture of hot-rolled sample is composed of Brass, S and Copper, which was changed in quantity and maximum density after 1st cold-rolling. After intermediate annealing (360 o C×2h), the Cube texture replaces the deformation texture and rises with the increase of cold deformation. In the cold-rolled sample, Cube and Cube+ND20 texture decrease and deformation texture increases with increasing the cold deformation quantity. In addition, samples with more cold deformation have a faster recovery and recrystallization progress after continuous annealing.