Effect of equal channel angular pressing on the mechanical and tribological behavior of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy

Abstract

Microstructure, mechanical properties and wear behavior of severely deformed Al-7075 alloy by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) were studied. Microhardness, tensile and shear strength tests were performed to evaluate the mechanical properties of the material. The relationship between tensile and shear strength was also extracted. In addition, with the aim of study the wear behavior, the wear tests were performed by using a pin-on-disk machine under different normal loads. The microscopic observations i.e. transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), were used to analyze the microstructure of specimens as well as the surface, subsurface and debris of worn specimens. Mechanical properties results showed that the hardness and strength (tensile and shear) of the ECAP-processed alloy were higher than that of the annealed alloy and increased with the increment of pass number. The wear test data revealed that the wear rate and friction coefficient decreased with increasing ECAP passes. The SEM analysis of worn specimens demonstrated that the dominant wear mechanisms of the annealed alloy were adhesion wear and delamination and the dominant wear mechanisms of ECAP processed alloy were abrasive wear and plowing bands. Oxidative wear was also observed at both annealed and ECAPed alloy. Totally, these results demonstrated that ultrafine-grained structure fabricated by ECAP, improves the wear resistance of the Al-7075 alloy.