Microstructure and Properties of 7075Al Alloy Fabricated by Directly Combined of Spray Forming and Continuous Extrusion Forming under Different Atomization Gas Pressures

A new process consisting of the spray forming and the continuous extrusion forming for manufacturing 7075A1 alloy was proposed. The microstructure evolution, mechanical properties and the resistance to stress corrosion cracking of the alloy were studied. The results indicate that the spray forming process induces obviously grain refinement and greatly lower segregation microstructure. Besides, the Conform process produces finer grains and conduces to more uniform distribution of the precipitates of A1Cu and MgZn2 phases. The fabricated alloy shows good comprehensive mechanical properties and superb performance of stress corrosion resistance. Moreover, a better combination of the mechanical properties and the resistance to stress corrosion cracking could then be obtained under a certain condition of atomization gas pressure of 0.19 MPa. The enhanced properties are attributed to the following factors, which include the grain refinement, the fine and homogeneous distribution of A1Cu and MgZn2 phases, the high density of the extruded products, as well as the discontinuous distribution of the grain boundaries after retrogression and reaging （RRA） heat treatment.

Microstructure, mechanical properties and deformation characteristics of Al-Mg-Si alloys processed by a continuous expansion extrusion approach

In the present work,a double-pass continuous expansion extrusion forming(CEEF) process was proposed for an Al-Mg-Si alloy,in which the diameter of rods was gradually expanded.The microstructural evolution,mechanical properties and deformation characteristics were investigated by utilizing microstructural observations,mechanical testing and a finite element method coupled with a cellular automata model.The results showed that the strength and ductility of the double-pass CEEF processed Al-Mg-Si alloys were improved synchronously,especially in artificially aged alloys.The grain size of the processed Al-Mg-Si alloy rods was refined remarkably by continuous dynamic recrystallization(CDRX)and geometric dynamic recrystallization(GDRX),and the homogeneity of microstructure was gradually improved with increasing number of processing passes.The artificially aged alloy processed with double-pass CEEF and water quenching contained fine(sub)grains and high-density dislocations,which resulted in more needle-shaped β" precipitates and a larger precipitate aspect ratio than the as-received and air-cooled CEEF alloys owing to the different precipitation kinetics.The severe cumulate strain and microshear bands were found to accelerate CDRX and GDRX for grain refinement between adjacent positions of the parabolic metal flow due to the special temperature characteristics and la rge shear straining during the CEEF process.