Tailoring materials properties of UFG aluminium alloys by accumulative roll bonded sandwich-like sheets

Accumulative roll bonding (ARB) as a method of severe plastic deformation is a well-established process to produce ultrafine-grained (UFG) sheet materials with extraordinary mechanical properties. In this work ARB is applied to combine different sheet materials in order to tailor the materials properties by producing sandwich-like structures. The high strength aluminium alloy AA5754, after 4 ARB cycles (N4), is used as a core material. To achieve high corrosion resistance and good visual properties, it is cladded with commercially pure aluminium AA1050A (N4) at room temperature and alternatively with AA6014 (N4) at 230 °C. All materials are UFG and satisfactory bonding between the different layers of aluminium alloys is achieved. Nanoindentation measurements reveal that there is a sharp transition in hardness at the interface. The yield and tensile strength of the core material are fully retained in the case of the AA6014/AA5754 sandwich. The strength of the AA1050A/AA5754 sandwich is slightly lower compared to the core material but still twice as high as the clad material. The serrated yielding effect which is strongly visible in tensile tests on the pure AA5754 alloy completely disappears in the sandwich sheets, which means the surface quality is strongly enhanced.