Effects of hot rolling, intermediate annealing and cold rolling on microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of an Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy

In this article, the effects of hot rolling, intermediate annealing and cold rolling on the microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of an Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy were investigated. The results showed that the mechanical properties of the Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy after hot rolling deformation are determined not only by the microstructures but also by the texture generated during the hot rolling process. With increasing the hot rolling reduction, dislocation pile-up becomes more severe and a lot of the stacking faults can be observed near the subgrain boundaries. The formation of the shear texture is beneficial for the improvements of the ultimate tensile strength and yield strength. In addition, a higher cold rolling reduction before intermediate annealing accelerates the recrystallization process, and the ultimate tensile strength and yield strength of the Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloy show an inverse relation to the ratio of cold rolling reduction before intermediate annealing divided by the cold rolling reduction after intermediate annealing. This investigation provides a reasonable method for optimizing the deformation parameters of Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloys for industrial applications.