Influence of the Cold Rolling Reduction Ratio and the Final Annealing Temperature on the Properties and Microstructure of Al–Mg–Sc Alloy Sheets

Abstract

The effect of the cold rolling reduction ratio (ε_h) on the microstructure and the complex of mechanical and technological properties of cold-rolled sheets from aluminum alloy V-1579 of the Al–Mg–Sc system has been studied. The influence of the final annealing temperature of sheets rolled with different reduction ratios has been examined as well. The character of plastic anisotropy has been found to change slightly with an increase in ε_h during cold rolling; an increase in tensile strength and yield strength with a decrease in relative elongation is observed. In this case, the anisotropy of the ultimate strength and yield strength is nearly absent. With an increase in the reduction ratio to 30–40%, the anisotropy of the relative elongation increases: the relative elongation in the rolling direction decreases more rapidly. However, after rolling with ε_h > 50%, the elongation anisotropy almost disappears. Regardless of the annealing temperature, samples rolled with a higher reduction ratio have higher strength characteristics. With an increase in the annealing temperature, the ultimate strength and yield strength decrease, while the relative elongation increases. In this case, softening with the annealing temperature occurs more intensely for samples rolled with a lower reduction. For all analyzed regimes, the character of the distribution of anisotropy indices in the sheet plane does not decrease after annealing and corresponds to the deformation type of textures. Moreover, the in-plane anisotropy coefficient decreases after annealing in comparison with a cold-rolled sample. At the same time, the technological properties of samples rolled with a higher degree of deformation are higher after annealing than those of samples rolled with a lower reduction regardless of the annealing temperature.