The influence of post-ECAP annealing on the properties of ultrafine-grained 5005 aluminum alloy sheet

Equal Channel Angular Pressing is a well-known method of severe plastic deformation used to obtain ultrafine grained materials with significantly improved mechanical properties. To the present, Equal Channel Angular Pressing has essentially been restricted to the treatment of bulk billets of square or circular cross-section of limited size. A machine developed at Monash University allows the Equal Channel Angular Pressing of sheet material. In the present work, improvement in biaxial formability, associated textures and mechanical properties after one Equal Channel Angular Pressing pass followed by annealing for aluminium alloy 5005 were investigated. An optimal annealing treatment to obtain a good balance of properties was defined.