The Prediction of Microstructure Evolution of 6005A Aluminum Alloy in a P-ECAP Extrusion Study

Finite element modeling (FEM) was applied for predicting the recrystallized structure in extruded 6005 aluminum alloy, and simulated results were experimentally validated. First, microstructure evolution of 6005 aluminum alloy during deformation was studied by means of isothermal compression test, where the processing parameters were chosen to reproduce the typical industrial conditions. Second, microstructure evolution was analyzed, and the obtained information was used to fit a dynamic recrystallization model implementing inside the DEFORM-3D FEM code environment. FEM of deformation of 6005 aluminum has been established and validated by microstructure comparison. Finally, the obtained dynamic recrystallization model was applied to tube extrusion by using a portholes-equal channel angular pressing die. The finite element analysis results showed that coarse DRX grains occur in the extruded tube at higher temperature and in the extruded tube at the faster speed of the stem. The test results showed material from the front end of the extruded tube has coarse grains (60 μm) and other extruded tube has finer grains (20 μm).