Caracterização experimental da anisotropia em chapas de alumínio da série 5XXX casse 5052-H32

Abstract

Aluminum alloys of 5000 series are widely employed in engineering applications due characteristics such as high thermal conductivity, high corrosion resistance, good weldability and conformability. Specifically, class 5052 is increasingly replacing steels in marine and automotive industries. Currently, these industries seek continuous improvements regarding their productive processes and product quality, avoiding issues closely related to unsuitable production operations planning. Important tools towards the adequate design of manufacturing process and related final product characteristics are the microstructural and mechanical characterization, which allows identifying conditions leading to variations in the material behavior during its processing. As an effort to contribute on this matter, this work aims on evaluating the microstructural characteristics and mechanical properties of the 5052-H32 aluminum alloy. Microstructural characterization was performed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques, while mechanical characterization was conducted means of tensile and hardness tests. From the microstructural and mechanical characterizations results, the anisotropic characteristics and conformability parameters of the studied alloy were determined. The obtained results show that the materials microstructure is constituted such as Al3Fe and Al3Mg2 intermetallic particles and Al2O3 inclusions precipitated in an aluminum matrix (-Al). Plasticity increases regarding the rolling orientation from 0° to 45° and decreases from 45° to 90°, while elasticity has an opposite behavior and hardness is not affected by the rolling direction. The mean and planar anisotropy indexes values indicate the suitability of the material by forming processing. Finally, the strength coefficient and strain hardening exponent values indicate that the alloy has lower formability than other Al alloys used in similar applications.