Flow behavior and microstructure evolution of Al-3.65Cu-0.98Li (wt%) alloy during hot deformation

Abstract The phenomenological constitutive model, processing map and microstructure evolution of Al-3.65Cu-0.98Li (wt%) alloy were studied by means of isothermal compression tests conducted on a Gleeble-3500 isothermal simulator in the temperature range of 350 °C−500 °C and strain rate range of 0.01 s⁻¹–10 s⁻¹ and EBSD. The strain compensated Arrhenius model describes the flow curves accurately with a relative error of 0.9898 and an average absolute relative error of 4.70%. The plastic capability was characterized by strain rate sensitivity index, and it has the positive relation with temperature and negative relation with strain rate. The processing map was constructed, the instable deformation window and optimal hot working window of this alloy was identified to be 350 ∼ 455 °C & 0.37 ∼ 10s⁻¹ and 440 ∼ 500 °C & 0.01 ∼ 0.368s⁻¹, respectively. Moreover, the dynamic recrystallization occurs more violently at lower strain rate, and most portion were transformed into substructure with increasing strain rate, which was nearly vanished at the strain rate of 10 s⁻¹. The geometric necessary dislocation distributions under different temperatures and strain rates were analyzed. More uniform distributed dislocation cell structures were observed at high temperature with low strain rate conditions and intensive dislocation and more pileups occurs at the contrary conditions.