Ultrafine-grained structure produced by FSW and ECAP in Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy: Comparison

Kulitskiy V., Malopheyev S., Buranova Y., Divinski S., Wilde G., Kaibyshev R.

Zusammenfassung

The Al-5.4Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy with initial coarse grained structure and containing coherent nanoscale Al3(Sc, Zr) particles with an average size of ~9 nm was subjected to equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) at temperatures ranging from 300 to 450°C up to a total strain of ~12 and friction stir processing (FSP) with the rotation speed ranging from 350 to 800 rpm. ECAP led to the formation of a uniform microstructure with an average grain size of ~ 0.9 μm. Increasing deformation temperature leads to a slight increase in the average grain size to 1.4 μm and coarsening of Al3(Sc, Zr) precipitates to 13 nm. FSP with a tool rotation speed of 350, 500, 650, 800 rpm and traveling speed of 75 mm/min led to the formation of fully recrystallized uniform microstructures with an average grain size of ~1.6, 1.9, 2.7 and 2.9 μm, respectively. The coarsening of Al3(Sc,Zr) dispersoids from 9 to 27 nm occurred under FSP but most of them retained coherency with the matrix.