Mechanical Properties and Aging Behavior of Ultrafine Grained Al-Ag Alloy Fabricated by Accumulative Roll-Bonding

Abstract

Accumulative roll-bonding (ARB) process is one of the severe plastic deformation processes for fabricating ultrafine grained materials that exhibit high strength. In aluminum alloys, aging heat treatment has been an important process for hardening materials. In order to achieve good mechanical properties through the combination of grain refinement hardening and precipitation hardening, an Al-4.2wt%Ag binary alloy was used in the present study. After a solution treatment at 550°C for 1.5hr, the alloy was severely deformed by the ARB process at room temperature (RT) up to 6 cycles (equivalent strain of 4.8). The specimens ARB-processed by various cycles (various strains) were subsequently aged at 100, 150, 200, 250°C, and RT. The hardness of the solution treated (ST) specimen increased by aging. On the other hand, hardness of the ARB processed specimen decreased after aging at high temperatures such as 250°C. This was probably due to coarsening of precipitates or/and matrix grains. The specimen aged at lower temperature showed higher hardness. The maximum harnesses achieved by aging for the ST specimen, the specimens ARB processed by 2 cycles, 4 cycles and 6 cycles were 55HV, 71HV, 69HV and 65HV, respectively. By tensile tests it was shown that the strength increased by the ARB process though the elongation decreased significantly. However, it was found that the tensile elongation of the ARB processed specimens was improved by aging without sacrificing the strength. The results suggest that the Al-Ag alloy having large elongation as well as high strength can be realized by the combination of the ARB process for grain refinement and the subsequent aging for precipitation hardening.