Recovery of deformation substructure and coarsening of particles on annealing severely plastically deformed Al–Mg–Si alloy and analysis of strengthening mechanisms

An Al–Mg–Si alloy was annealed to various solutionized and aged states and was then severely plastically deformed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). These materials were subsequently annealed for a range of times and temperatures to induce precipitation, dislocation recovery, and grain growth, with changes of mechanical behavior followed by tensile testing. Precipitation of excess solute was seen to occur in all cases, independent of the initial heat treated state, but the particles present appear to play only a small role in stabilizing the deformation substructure, at least until significant particle and grain coarsening has occurred, when discontinuous grain coarsening can be provoked. The strength of materials is examined, and the respective contributions of loosely arranged dislocations, many grain boundaries, and dispersed particles are deduced. It is shown that dislocation strengthening is significant in as-deformed, as well as lightly annealed materials, with grain boundary strengthening providing the major contribution thereafter.