DEFORMATION AND DAMAGE MECHANISMS IN SELECTED 2000 SERIES ALUMINUM ALLOYS UNDER BOTH QUASI-STATIC AND DYNAMIC IMPACT LOADING CONDITIONS
Date
2015-09-10
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Degree Level
Masters
Abstract
In recent times, application of aluminum alloys is favored in the transportation sectors such as the aerospace and automobile industries where reduced fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission are major priorities. In these applications, these alloys can be exposed to dynamic shock loading conditions as in the case of car crash and birds’ collision during aircraft’s take-off or landing. This study therefore focused on the deformation and damage mechanisms in AA 2017, AA 2024 and AA 2624 aluminum alloys under both quasi-static and dynamic impact loading conditions.
Cylindrical specimens of the selected aluminum alloys were investigated under both quasi-static loading at 3.2 x10-3 s-1 using an Instron R5500 mechanical testing machine and dynamic impact loading using the split Hopkinson pressure bar at strain rates ranging between 2000 and 8000 s-1. The effects of strain rate and temper condition on the microstructural evolution in the alloys during mechanical loading were studied. The electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique was used to investigate the texture of the naturally-aged AA 2017 and AA 2624 alloys before and after dynamic shock loading. The contributions of the major alloying elements such as copper, magnesium and silicon to the microstructural evolution and deformation behavior of the alloys under the dynamic shock loading condition were also studied using the energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) technique.
Results showed that the morphology and atomic distribution of particles in the investigated alloys are functions of the temper condition. The hardness of all the three alloys was higher in the age-hardened conditions than the annealed ones. Although deformation of the alloy under quasi-static compressive loading was dominated by strain hardening, flow softening leading to strain localization and formation of shear bands occurred once certain critical strain values were reached. Under both quasi-static and dynamic loading, the alloys with low Cu:Mg ratio (AA 2024 and AA 2624) showed higher mechanical strength in age-hardened condition than that with high Cu:Mg ratio (AA 2017). All the alloys in the annealed condition exhibited an enhanced plasticity and formability. Intense strain localization leading to formation of adiabatic shear bands (ASBs) was the principal contributor to failure in the alloys under dynamic impact loading. Both deformed and transformed bands were observed, with cracking occurring mainly along the transformed shear bands. The tendency for formation of adiabatic shear bands is observed to be a function of the alloy composition, temper condition, strain, strain rate and strain hardening rate. In the natural aging condition, AA 2024 showed the highest susceptibility to formation of ASBs followed by AA 2624 and AA 2017 in that order. On the other hand, AA 2024 has the least susceptibility in the artificially-aged condition. Occurrence of bifurcation of transformed bands in dynamic impacted specimens is dependent on temper condition, strain and strain rate. The mechanism of fracture of the precipitation hardened samples is typical of ductile fracture occurring sequentially by nucleation, growth, and coalescence of micro-voids processes within transformed band. Elongated grains were observed to arrest propagating shear band depending on the angle the band makes with elongated grains. The higher the angle of inclination of a shear band to the grain on its path, the higher the tendency of the grain to stop its propagation.
Texture analysis of the impacted specimens of AA 2017-T451 and AA 2624-T351 shows that the former has a higher tendency for the evolution of ultra-fine DRX grains within the transformed shear band. High strain rate led to the development of CD//<111> orientations at the expense of CD//<110> orientations. Schmid factor calculations performed on few different orientations in the starting microstructure shows that CD//<110> is less susceptible to slip deformation and consequently underwent rotation to CD//<111>.
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Keywords
Aluminum alloy, AA 2017, AA 2024, AA 2624, Precipitation hardening, Dynamic shock loading, Adiabatic shear band, Texture
Citation
Degree
Master of Science (M.Sc.)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
Program
Mechanical Engineering