The Effectiveness of Cold Rolling for Residual Stress Reduction in Quenched 7050 Aluminium Alloy Forgings

Abstract

Residual stresses are often introduced into aluminum alloys through quenching processes performed to generate the required microstructure. Such residual stresses are known to be deleterious to the integrity of the component. Methods to mitigate residual stresses in quenched components are therefore of great importance. Cold rolling has been proposed as an effective technique to remove residual stresses in large components. In this work, the effectiveness of cold rolling in reducing the residual stresses in quenched blocks AA7050 has been quantified using the neutron diffraction technique. Neutron diffraction measurements have been performed on two blocks one quenched and the other quenched & cold rolled block. Comparing the residual stress distributions pre and post rolling it has been found that cold rolling almost eliminates the tensile residual stresses in the core of the block, however it generates large tensile residual stresses d in a shallow region near the surface of the block.