Evaluation of microstructure and superplasticity in friction stir processed 5083 Al alloy

Friction stir processing (FSP) has been developed as a potential grain refinement technique. In the current study, a commercial 5083 Al alloy was friction stir processed with three combinations of FSP parameters. Fine-grained microstructures with average grain sizes of 3.5–8.5 μm were obtained. Tensile tests revealed that the maximum ductility of 590 was achieved at a strain rate of 3 × 10⁻³ s⁻¹ and 530 °C in the 6.5-μm grain size FSP material, whereas for the material with 8.5-μm grain size, maximum ductility of 575 was achieved at a strain rate of 3 × 10⁻⁴ s⁻¹ and490 °C. The deformation mechanisms for both the materials were grain boundary sliding (m ∼0.5) However, the 3.5-μm grain size material showed maximum ductility of 315 at 10⁻² s⁻¹ and 430 °C. The flow mechanism was solute-drag dislocation glide (m ∼0.33) This study indicated that establishing a processing window is crucial for obtaining optimized microstructure for optimum superplasticity.