Igor Vysotskiy

Superplastic Behavior of Friction-Stir Welded Joints of an Al-Mg-Sc Alloy with Ultrafine-Grained Microstructure

The commercial Al-5.4Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy was subjected to equal-channel angular pressing at 300°C to a true strain ~12 followed by cold rolling to a total thickness reduction of 80%. The ultrafine-grained sheets were joined by friction stir welding (FSW). To evaluate superplastic properties of the weldments, the tensile samples including all of the characteristic FSW microstructural zones were machined perpendicular to the welding direction and pulled up to failure in the temperature range of 400 to 500°C and at strain rates of 2.8×10-4 s-1 to 5.6×10-1 s-1. The friction-stir welded material exhibited excellent superplastic properties. The highest elongation-to-failure of ~1370% was recorded at a temperature of ~450°C and an initial strain rate of 5.6×10-2 s-1, where the strain rate sensitivity coefficient was about 0.64. The relationship between superplastic ductility and microstructure is discussed.

Superplasticity of Friction-Stir Welded Al-Mg-Sc Alloy with Ultrafine-Grained Microstructure Obtained by Warm Severe Plastic Deformation

High-strength sheets of Al-5.4Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy were produced by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) to 12 passes via route BC at 300 °C (573 K) followed by isothermal rolling at 300 °C (573 K) to a total thickness reduction of 80%. The final sheets with ultra-fine grained (UFG) structure were joined by friction stir welding (FSW). The tensile samples including all of the characteristic FSW microstructural zones were machined perpendicular to welding direction. The material demonstrated excellent superplastic properties in the range of temperatures from 350 (623 K) to 450 °C (723 K) at strain rates ranging from 8.3×10-3 s-1 to 3.3×10-1 s-1. The base material was found to be prone to abnormal grain growth at the testing temperature. This led to localization of the superplastic deformation in the stir zone section of the joints and thus limited total elongation-to-failure. The relationship between superplastic ductility and microstructure and application of this technique for the fabrication of large-scale superplastic sheets are discussed.