Modeling the microstructural changes during hot tandem rolling of AA5XXX aluminum alloys: Part III. Overall model development and validation

Part III of this article presents the overall mathematical development for the microstructural and textural evolution during industrial hot tandem rolling of AA5182 and AA5052 alloys and validation of the mathematical model, by comparison to both industrial data and information from the literature. The model consists of a plasticity module to simulate the temperature and deformation in the roll bite and an interstand module to characterize the changing microstructure, texture, and temperature in the strip between the rolling stands. The plasticity module was developed using a commercial finite-element package, DEFORM, a two-dimensional transient Lagrangian model which couples the thermal and deformation phenomena and is able to predict the temperature, strain rate, and strain distribution in the ship at any position in the roll bite. The interstand module incorporates semiempirical equations, developed in this study, which quantify the microstructural (percent recrystallization and recrystallized grain size) and textural changes in the strip between the rolling stands. The intel-stand model also includes a temperature module to predict the through-thickness temperature distribution in the strip based on one-dimensional heat conduction. Validation of the model against industrial data indicated that it gave reasonable predictions for the temperature, grain size, and volume fraction of some of the deformation texture components after recrystallization was completed. However, the model overestimated the mill loads in the last stands for both the AA5182 and AA5052 alloys and underestimated the amount of cube ({100}< uvw >) and S ({123}< 634 >) texture in the recrystallized strip.