Author(s)

Amin Azimi¹, Gbadebo Moses Owolabi¹, Hamid Fallahdoost², Nikhil Kumar¹, Horace Whitworth¹

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering, Howard University, Washington DC, USA.
²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering Program, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY, USA.

In this study, AA2519 alloy was initially processed by multi axial forging (MAF) at room and cryogenic temperatures. Subsequently, the microstructure and the mechanical behavior of the processed samples under quasi-static loading were investigated to determine the influence of cryogenic forging on alloys’ subgrains dimensions, grain boundaries interactions, strength, ductility and toughness. In addition, the failure mechanisms at the tensile rupture surfaces were characterized using scanning electron micro-scope (SEM). The results show significant improvements in the strength, ductility and toughness of the alloy as a result of the cryogenic MAF process. The formation of nanoscale crystallite microstructure, heavily deformed grains with high density of grain boundaries and second phase breakage to finer particles were characterized as the main reasons for the increase in the mechanical properties of the cryogenic forged samples. The cryogenic processing of the alloy resulted in the formation of an ultrafine grained material with tensile strength and toughness that are ~41% and ~80% higher respectively after 2 cycles MAF when compared with the materials processed at ambient temperature. The fractography analysis on the tested materials shows a substantial ductility improvement in the cryoforged (CF) samples when compared to the room temperature forged (RTF) samples which is in alignment with their stress-strain profiles. However, extended forging at higher cycles than 2 cycles led only to increase in strength at the expense of ductility for both the CF and RTF samples.

AA2519 Aluminum Alloy, Cryogenic Forging, Quasi-Static Mechanical Behavior, Microstructure Investigation, Fractography Analysis

Azimi, A. , Owolabi, G. , Fallahdoost, H. , Kumar, N. and Whitworth, H. (2019) Microstructure and Quasi-Static Mechanical Behavior of Cryoforged AA2519 Alloy. Materials Sciences and Applications, 10, 137-149. doi: 10.4236/msa.2019.102011.