Abstract
A cold roll-bonding process is applied to fabricate an AA6061/AA5052/AA6061 three-layer clad sheet. Two AA6061 and one AA5052 sheets of 2 mm thickness, 40 mm width, and 300 mm length are stacked, with the AA5052 sheet located in the center. After surface treatment such as degreasing and wire brushing, sample is reduced to a thickness of 1.5 mm by multi-pass cold rolling. The rolling is performed at ambient temperature without lubricant using a 2-high mill with a roll diameter of 400 mm at rolling speed of 6.0 m/sec. The roll bonded AA6061/AA5052/AA6061 complex sheet is then hardened by natural aging(T4) and artificial aging(T6) treatments. The microstructures of the as-roll bonded and age-hardened Al complex sheets are revealed by optical microscopy; the mechanical properties are investigated by tensile testing and hardness testing. After rolling, the roll-bonded AA6061/AA5052/AA6061 sheets show a typical deformation structure in which grains are elongated in the rolling direction. However, after T4 and T6 aging treatment, there is a recrystallization structure consisting of coarse equiaxed grains in both AA5052 and AA6061 sheets. The as roll-bonded specimen shows a sandwich structure in which an AA5052 sheet is inserted into two AA6061 sheets with higher hardness. However, after T4 and T6 aging treatment, there is a different sandwich structure in which the hardness of the upper and lower layers of the AA6061 sheets is higher than that of the center of the AA5052 sheet. The strength values of the T4 and T6 age-treated specimens are found to increase by 1.3 and 1.4 times, respectively, compared to that value of the starting material.
