Hot Deformation Behavior and Microstructure Evolution of Al-7.92 Zn-1.64 Mg-2.00 Cu Alloy

During the thermal deformation of aluminum alloy materials, the deformation conditions such as deformation volume, temperature and strain rate are important factors that influence the deformation mechanisms such as work hardening, dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization. Under the interaction of different deformation mechanisms, the properties of aluminum alloy materials will change significantly. In this study, isothermal hot compression experiments were conducted on the Al-7.92 Zn-1.64 Mg-2.00 Cu alloy to analyze its hot flow behavior (T = 250~450 °C, ɛ̇ = 0.001~1 s⁻¹). The obtained flow behavior data were used to construct an Arrhenius-type constitutive equation and processing maps, investigating organizational evolution under diverse hot deformation conditions. The results show that the energy dissipation rate can reach 0.37 when the deformation temperature T = 380~450 °C and the strain rate ɛ̇ < 0.1 s⁻¹, suggesting that the material is most suitable for thermal deformation processing at high temperatures and low strain rates. At a strain rate of 0.1 s⁻¹ and a temperature of 450 °C, the percentage of recrystallized grains and substructures increased by 7.20% and 3.14%, respectively, compared to 300 °C, which is due to the severe dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization. At 350 °C and 0.1 s⁻¹, there was a higher percentage of recrystallized grains and substructures, 5.44% and 5.87% higher, respectively, than at a strain rate of 1 s⁻¹, indicating that the release of dislocation accumulation due to deformation storage energy will be more favored at low strain rates, which promotes the enhancement of the dynamic recrystallization mechanism.