Correlation among Composition, Microstructure and Hardness of 7xxx Aluminum Alloy Using Original Statistical Spatial-Mapping Method

The quantitative study of the relationship between material composition, microstructure and properties is of great importance for the improvement in material properties. In this study, the continuous data of elemental composition, recrystallization, hardness and undissolved phase distribution of the same sample in the range of 60 to 150 square millimeters were obtained by high-throughput testing instrument. The distribution characteristics and rules of a single data set were analyzed. In addition, each data set was divided into micro-areas according to the corresponding relationship of location, and the mapping between multi-source heterogeneous micro-area data sets was established to analyze and quantify the correlation between material composition, structure and hardness. The conclusions are as follows: (1) the average size of the insoluble phase in the middle of the two materials is larger than that of the surface, but due to the existence of central segregation, the average area of the T4 insoluble phase showed an abnormal decrease; (2) there was positive micro-segregation of Al, Cr, Ti, and Zr elements, and negative micro-segregation of Zn, Cu, and Fe elements in the recrystallized grains of the T5 middle segregation zone; (3) the growth process of the insoluble phase was synchronous with the recrystallization proportion and the size of the recrystallized grains; (4) the composition segregation and recrystallized coarse grains were the main reasons for the formation of low hardness zone in T4 and T5 materials, respectively.