Grain structure and microtexture evolution during superplastic forming of a high strength AlZnMgCu alloy

Grain structure and microstructure evolution during superplastic forming were studied on an unrecrystallized sheet of a modified 7050 superplastic alloy. A SEM-based local orientation technique was used to cover a large number of (sub)grain boundaries in combination with other metallographic techniques. The gradual boundary misorientation and microtexture evolution during superplastic forming (SPF) confirmed that a continuous evolutionary process was occurring. There was no evidence of dynamic recrystallization at the stress maximum. The fraction of high angle boundaries increased rapidly once the mean misorientation reached a critical value. These and other results suggest that both grain boundary sliding (GBS) and dislocation slip were operative initially until the stress maximum was approached, beyond which GBS was predominant. The results of quantitative orientation distribution function (ODF) analyses suggest that grain rotation, which resulted in texture randomization, became important from slightly beyond the stress maximum through most of the stress-strain curve.