A comparative study of the stress relaxation in aged and un-aged high-purity aluminium polycrystals

Stress relaxation in 99.996% aluminium polycrystals of average grain-diameter 0.30, 0.42 and 0.51 mm, annealed at 500°C and aged for six months at room temperature, has been studied as a function of initial stress level from which relaxation at constant strain was allowed to start. Data were also obtained with annealed but un-aged aluminium specimens of the same purity and grain size for comparison. The grain size has no notable effect on the strength parameters and stress-relaxation rate in both aged and un-aged aluminium. The room-temperature ageing causes significant increase in the yield stress, while tensile strength and fracture stress remain un-effected. The intrinsic height of the thermally-activable energy barrier (1.64 eV) evaluated for aged aluminium is comparable with that (1.94 eV) for un-aged aluminium, and is of the order of magnitude for recovery processes. In aged specimens, the relaxation rate at a given stress level is 30% larger and associated activation volume is accordingly smaller than that in un-aged specimens. This is most probably due to the diffusion of vacancies and/or residual gaseous and metallic impurity atoms to the cores of edge dislocations in aged specimens.