The effect of precipitation of Mg2Al3 and of MnAl6 on texture evolution during isothermal annealing and subsequently on formability of CC AA5182 Al alloy

Continuous cast (CC) AA5182 Al alloy with the precipitation of Mg₂Al₃ and of MnAl₆ was cold rolled to 70% reduction and then isothermally annealed in a salt bath at three temperatures (316, 343, and 371 °C) for different times. Texture evolution during recrystallization was investigated. It was found that the recrystallization textures of the material with intense Mg₂Al₃ precipitation along the grain boundaries exhibited weaker Cube, Goss and R/β fiber components than those of the material with the more uniform fine MnAl₆ precipitates. The opposite was true in the cold rolled condition, i.e. the material with MnAl₆ precipitation had weaker Cube, Goss, and R/β fiber components in the cold rolled condition than the material with intense Mg₂Al₃ precipitation. Thus, recrystallization textures of material with Mg₂Al₃ precipitation were weaker than material with MnAl₆ precipitation. This is due to the fact that large Mg₂Al₃ particles favor the nucleation of randomly oriented grains. When subjected to formability tests, the material with prior Mg₂Al₃ precipitation displayed a lower anisotropy in tensile yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and strain hardening exponent than material with prior MnAl₆ precipitation. This is in accord with the texture results which indicated that the recrystallization textures of material with an initial Mg₂Al₃ precipitation were closer to those of a perfectly random sample than those of material with an initial MnAl₆ precipitation. On the other hand, the elongation and Olsen values were lower and the surface quality after bending tests was worse for material with Mg₂Al₃ precipitation. This is due to the non-uniform distribution of Mg₂Al₃ particles which precipitated primarily along the grain boundaries and caused an earlier formation and coalescence of the microvoids around the grain boundary precipitates. The forming limit diagrams (FLD) correlated well with the tensile, Olsen and bending results.