Mechanical Behaviour in the Mushy State during Isothermal Tensile Testing

Abstract

In order to improve the understanding of hot tearing during laser welding of aluminium alloys, the rheology of the alloys in the mushy state must be characterized. The present work investigates the mechanical behaviour of the aerospace alloy AA6056 using a specially designed isothermal tensile test in the mushy state. Using a Gleeble thermo-mechanical machine, two different tests have been performed: i) tests during partial remelting and ii) tests after partial solidification at a high cooling rate. These tests have been carried out not only on the 6056 alloy but also on a mix between 6056 and 4047 Al-Si alloy which corresponds to the composition of the nugget of a laser using a filler wire. The increase of the solid fraction results in an increase of the maximum stress and a change on the fracture surface from a smooth dendritic to a more ductile one. Moreover, the alloys exhibit a typical visco plastic behaviour with an increase of the maximal stress with the strain rate. When the test is performed at a particular solid fraction of 0.97, the fracture is more erratic and the ductility is low. The results show the existence of a ductile/brittle/ductile transition with the fraction of solid. The fracture stress is shown to be higher when testing after partial remelting as compared to partial solidification for the same solid fraction. This is due to the difference in microstructure of the mushy zone and more particularly in the connectivity of the solid skeleton. An adapted creep law is used to describe the mechanical behaviour of alloys during the partial remelting test using the fraction of grain boundary wetted by the liquid given by Wray. This law is shown to be irrelevant to the partial solidification tests, as a result of the modified geometry of the liquid phase. From these tests, we have determined a new law relating the solid fraction to the fraction of grain boundaries wetted by the liquid. This law is a useful tool to predict the mechanical behaviour when mechanical loading occurs during solidification.