Effects of cooling condition on microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of friction stir processed 2A14 aluminum alloy

Detailed analysis on the microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of 2A14 aluminum alloy subjected to friction stir processing (FSP) under different cooling conditions has been conducted. SEM, EBSD and TEM were used to reveal the microstructure characteristic, while the microhardness and tensile tests were also performed. The results showed that microstructures formed by fine, equiaxed and highly misoriented grains with the average grain size in the range of 1.19∼3.1 μm were obtained in the stirred zone (SZ). Compared with FSP under air cooling, rapid cooling can significantly reduce grain size, second phase particles size and fraction of high angle grain boundaries in the SZ. Besides, recrystallized grains with random orientation are formed throughout SZ during FSP. The microtexture analysis also demonstrated the dominance of shear texture ({hkl}〈110〉 and {111}〈uvw〉 fibers), with C and A₁* components are produced through the geometrically dynamic recrystallization mechanism. And the texture intensity in SZ of the samples is slightly increased with accelerated cooling method, indicating that another mechanism of grain refinement through discontinuous dynamic recrystallization might be involved. Additionally, the strength and microhardness of friction stir processed samples were improved with increasing the cooling rate due to grain refinement, the increase of dislocation density and fine and uniformly distributed second phase particles. (paper)