Study of restoration mechanism and constitutive equations of AA5456 Aluminum alloy during hot deformation process

Understanding softening mechanisms of wrought aluminum alloy during hot deformation processes is important in order to control microstructure and to predict flow stress accurately in simulation. In this paper, hot compression tests have been done to study the hot deformation behavior of an A5456 aluminum alloy. The effect of temperature, strain and strain rate on flow behavior of the alloy has been studied as well. For this meaning, several cylindrical samples with respectively 10 and 15 mm in diameter and length have been subjected to the test at 350, 400, 450, 500 and 550 °C, strain rates of 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1 s-1 and strain of 0.7. The samples where then immediately quenched in water in order to study the microstructure. Analysis of the strain – strain curves at different deformation conditions show that the flow stress decreases with increasing the test temperature and decreasing the strain rate. Because of high stacking fault energy of aluminum alloy, the dominant softening mechanism in this alloy is dynamic recovery. From experimental results, the equations governing the hot deformation behavior of the material have been determined at peak stress and activation energy of 182 KJ/mol for hot deformation process has been obtained.