Mechanism and Inhibition of Grain Coarsening of Al-Mg-Si Alloy in Hot Forming

A high-Ti 6061 alloy was rolled with strains up to 0. 8 - 2. 0 and at 350 - 550 ℃ . Microstructures that developed during deformation and subsequent solution heat treatment (SHT) were observed by using optical and transmission electron microscopy. Microstructure evolution during SHT depends mainly on the initial rolling temperature,and it was found that the higher this temperature is,the coarser the grains are. After rolling at 400 ℃ ,well-defined cells and subgrains were formed, which induced further sites for recrystallization nucleation during subsequent SHT. The recrystallization mechanism was found to be subgrain rotation,with a final grain size smaller than 200 μm. Increasing the rolling temperature to 500 ℃ results in a low density of dislocations distributed uniformly in the deformed matrix and fewer nucleation sites during subsequent SHT. The recrystallization mechanism is grain boundary bulging,while the final grain size approaches several millimeters. Finally,a hot forming process of high-Ti 6061 alloy for inhibiting grain coarsening was proposed,and verified by experiments.