Substructural influence in the hot rolling of Al alloys

Abstract

The industrial rolling of aluminum alloys is generally conducted in multistage schedules of 10–15 passes partly on reversing mills and partly on continuous mills with temperature declining from 500°C to between 300°C and 250°C. Static recrystallization may take place in long intervals after passes with higher temperature and strain. During lower temperature intervals, only static recovery takes place so that in the following passes the flow curves exhibit higher initial stresses. Dynamic recovery decreases gradually through the hot-, warm-, and cold-working ranges but is reduced as the concentration of solutes and particles increase. Recrystallization is much more sensitive to temperature and alloying and is retarded by increased dynamic recovery. The texture of sheet depends on lattice-dependent Taylor rotations during dislocation slip, enhanced recovery of certain deformation band orientations, and preferred nucleation and growth during interpass pauses or annealing. Schedule optimization can be guided by physical simulation or modeling based on recrystallization kinetics to attain selected strengthening substructure, recrystallized grain size, and texture for product earing control.