Effect of the Equal Channel Angular Pressing on the Microstructure and Phase Composition of a 7xxx Series Al-Zn-Mg-Zr Alloy

A supersaturated Al-4.8%Zn-1.2%Mg-0.14%Zr (wt%) alloy was processed by the equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) technique at room temperature in order to obtain an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure having an average grain size of about 260 nm. The hardness and microstructural characteristics, such as the phase composition and precipitations of this UFG microstructure were studied using depth-sensing indentation (DSI), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), as well as non-isothermal scanning of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and compared to the properties of the un-deformed sample. Emphasis was placed on the effect of the UFG microstructure on the subsequent thermal processes in DSC measurements. It has been shown that the ECAP process resulted in not only an ultrafine-grained but also a strongly precipitated microstructure, leading to a hardness (2115 MPa) two and a half times higher than the initial hardness of the freshly quenched sample. Because of the significant changes in microstructure, ECAP has also a strong effect on the dissolution (endothermic) and precipitation (exothermic) processes during DSC measurements, where the dissolution and precipitation processes were quantitatively characterized by using experimentally determined specific enthalpies, ΔH and activation energies, Q.