Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jalcom

Investigation of dynamic recrystallization and modeling of

microstructure evolution of an Al-Mg-Si aluminum alloy during high-
temperature deformation
Cunsheng Zhang a, b, Cuixue Wang b, Ran Guo b, Guoqun Zhao b, *, Liang Chen b,
Wenchao Sun c, Xiebin Wang b
a
Shenzhen Research Institute of Shandong University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518057, PR China
b
Key Laboratory for Liquid-Solid Structural Evolution & Processing of Materials (Ministry of Education), Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, PR
China
c
Conglin Aluminum Co., Ltd., Yantai, Shandong 265705, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior and microstructure evolution of an Al-Mg-Si aluminum
Received 1 May 2018 alloy (AA6N01) during hot deformation are investigated by experiments and mathematical modeling.
Received in revised form Based on hot compression tests under different strain rates and temperatures, the type of dynamic
12 August 2018
recrystallization are firstly investigated by EBSD analysis. It is observed that DRX occurs under all
Accepted 21 September 2018
examined conditions, however, the type of DRX is associated with the deformation temperature at the
Available online 22 September 2018
strain level of about 1.5. Then considering the deformed and recrystallized behaviors, a grain size evo-
lution model is established to predict the microstructure evolution during hot deformation. (1) According
Keywords:
Dynamic recrystallizaiton
to the dislocation work hardening theory, the DRX kinetic model is built to predict the distribution of
Recrystallized grain DRX. (2) Taking the effects of deformation temperature and strain rate into account, the DRX grain size
Deformed grain model is built to predict the equiaxed recrystallized grain size. (3) By combining the experimental ob-
Aluminum alloy 6N01 servations with numerical simulation, the deformed grain size model is established to predict the
Inverse analysis elongated grain size evolution. Finally, by integrating above three models, the grain size evolution model
is established to predict the microstructure evolution of AA6N01 during high-temperature deformation
and is validated by comparing the predicted grain size with experimental observations during hot
compression and hot extrusion, respectively.
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
With the advantages of low density, excellent corrosion resis-
tance as well as easy recycling, aluminum alloys are widely used in
transportation, machinery and other industrial fields. During the
hot forming of aluminum alloys, a series of microstructure phe-
nomena which are sensitive to deformation conditions will happen,
such as recovery and recrystallization. And to a large extent, they
determine the microstructure and mechanical properties of
aluminum alloy products. Therefore, it is very necessary to inves-
tigate the micro-structure evolution during the high-temperature
deformation of aluminum alloys.
Dynamic recrystallization (DRX) is a key factor to determine the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ8653188392811.
E-mail addresses: zhaogq@sdu.edu.cn, zhangcs@sdu.edu.cn (G. Zhao).
final grain size of the profile. The mechanism of DRX is closely
related to the crystal structure of material [1]. For materials with low
stacking fault energy (such as Cu, Ni), discontinuous dynamic
recrystallizaiton (DDRX) usually occurs (nucleation and growth of
new equiaxed grains during deformation). However, the DRX
mechanism for high stacking fault energy materials (such as
aluminum alloys) is still controversial [2]. Güzel et al. [3] claimed
that there were two types of dynamic recrystallization for aluminum
alloys: continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) and geometric
dynamic recrystallization (GDRX). For CDRX, misorientation angle
(q) increased with the accumulation of dislocations. When the
misorientation angle reached a critical value (q > 15
), low-angle
grain boundaries transformed into high-angle grain boundaries
[4]. By carrying out equal-channel angular extrusion (ECAE), Kai-
byshev et al. [5] found that new ultrafine grains evolved by CDRX in
An Al-Li-Mg-Sc alloy. In addition, some scholars put forward GDRX
theory, which was firstly observed by McQueen et al. [6] in

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2018.09.263
0925-8388/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
60 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
Notations
s Stress
ssat Saturated stress of DRV
s0 Yield stress
sc Critical stress of DRX
sss Saturated stress of DRX
Ɛ Strain
Ɛc Critical strain of DRX
Ɛ0 Yield strain
Ɛss Saturated strain of DRX
Z Zener-Hollomon parameter
R Universal gas constant
Q Activation energy of hot deformation
commercial purity aluminum. They considered that GDRX would
happen when deformation was up to a critical level. GDRX was also
found in hot deformed AA6082 by Poletti et al. [7]. In addition to the
type of DRX, the occurrence condition of DRX is also under debate,
and there are different opinions in literature. Liu et al. [8] considered
that the occurrence of DRX was related to the Zener-Hollomon
parameter. Sakai et al. [9] believed that DRX would occur when
the strain reached a critical value. In addition, Shen et al. [10] found
that the second phase particles also caused the occurrence of DRX.
In order to predict the recrystallized grain size of aluminium
alloys during hot deformation, some mathematical models were
proposed in literature on basis of the experimental observations.
For example, a physical model was established by considering the
average dislocation density, the average grain size and the grain
boundary orientation angle by Toth et al. [11]. Hallberg et al. [12]
bulit a DRX model to predict the grain size evolution during forging
process. Lee et al. [13] developed a grain aggregate model for DRX,
and predicted the local changes of microstructure and average size
during hot forging process. Chen et al. [14] proposed a DRX kinetic
model to predict the microstructure evolution of Al-Zn-Mg alloy
during porthole die extrusion. As for the kinetics of DRX, Huang
et al. [15] considered that the key factors influencing the DRX
processes including stacking fault energy, initial grain size, TMP
conditions and second-phase particles. Zhang et al. [16] claimed
that dynamic recrystallization was related to the Z parameters
(temperature, strain rate and activation energy), and dynamic
recrystallization occurs more fully with the decrease of Z parame-
ters. Lee et al. [17] considered that the dynamic recrystallization
was related to the strain and the second phase particles. Based on
the conventional DRX kinetics model, Chen et al. [18] estimated
firstly the volume fractions of DRX and then the optical observation
confirmed that the dynamically recrystallized grain size could be
well characterized by a power function of Zener-Hollumon
parameter. Liu et al. [19] estimated a new kinetics model which
represents the ’slow-rapid-slow’ property of DRX development.
Besides the equiaxed recrystallized grains, there are also elon-
gated deformation grains during the hot deformation process of
aluminum alloys. For this purpose, Donati et al. [2] developed a
model to predict the elongated grain thickness and length of 6XXX
aluminium alloy, while the deformation grain thickness and length
of AA7020 were expressed as functions of strain during hot forward
extrusion process by Foydl et al. [20]. Therefore, to accurately
predict the grain size during hot deformation, both the elongated
deformed grains and equiaxed recrystallized grains should be
considered. However, there is little prediction of the grain size
evolution by considering both deformed and recrystallized grains.
A reasonable constitutive equation is very important for accurate
prediction of microstructure evolution during the deformation
T Absolute temperature
U Coefficient of DRV
XDRX DRX kinetic
dDRX Recrystallized grain size
q work-hardening rate (q ¼ ddεs)
ddl Length of elongated deformed grain
ddt Thickness of elongated deformed grain
dl Length of average grain
dt Thickness of average grain
k, m Material parameters in DRX kinetic model
a1, a2, a3, b1, b2, c1, c2 Parameters in constitutive model
l0, l1, l2, l3, m0, m1, m2, n0, n1 Parameters in DRX grain size model
process. Recently, a variety of constitutive models have been pro-
posed or developed to describe the rheological behavior of mate-
rials, which can mainly be divided into three categories: the
phenomenological, physically-based and artificial neural network
models [21]. In a phenomenological constitutive model, the material
constants are usually expressed as functions of temperature, strain
and strain rate. The Arrhenius-type constitutive model is one of the
most widely used phenomenological model to characterize the hot
deformation behavior of many materials, such as nickel-based alloy,
magnesium alloy and aluminium alloy [22e24]. While for
physically-based models, internal factors are usually taken into
considered, such as the microscopic thermodynamic properties and
the evolution of dislocation density. Merking et al. [25] built a KME
model to describe the flow behavior of FCC and BCC alloys. Ding
et al. [26] establish a multi-parameter position model to describe
the rheological behavior of conductive copper. Considering the in-
fluences of dislocation, work hardening and dynamic softening,
some other physically-based constitutive equations are established
to describe the flow stress of materials: inconel 718 alloy [27], Ti
alloy [28], AA7050 [29], N08028 [30] and 42CrMo [31].
Al-Mg-Si aluminum alloy 6N01 (AA6N01) is widely applied in
manufacturing the bodies of high-speed trains. However, little
work in literature has been done on the microstructure evolution of
AA6N01 during high-temperature deformation, which greatly af-
fects the accurate prediction and regulation of the microstructure
during hot forming process. Therefore, the purpose of this work is
to investigate the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior and
microstructure evolution of AA6N01 during hot deformation. Based
on a series of hot compression tests, the mechanism of DRX is firstly
investigated. Then a grain size evolution model is established to
predict the microstructure evolution by considering both deformed
and recrystallized grains. Finally, the model of grain size evolution
is validated by two kinds of hot forming processes.
2. Hot compression tests
2.1. Material and its initial microstructure
The chemical compositions of the studied AA6N01 are listed in
Table 1 and its initial microstructure before hot deformation is
shown in Fig. 1. It is observed that the equiaxed grains with an
average grain size of about 125 mm are evenly distributed.
Table 1
Chemical compositions of AA6N01 in the present study (wt.%).
Si Fe Cu Mn Mg Cr Zn Ti Al
0.4e0.6 0.2 0.05 0.1 0.5e0.7 0.02 0.05 0.08 Bal.
 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
Fig. 1. EBSD microstructure (a) and grain size distribution (b) of AA6N01 before hot deformation.
2.2. Hot compression tests
The hot compression tests are carried out on a Gleeble-1500
thermal-simulation machine. Cylindrical specimens are machined
from the homogenized ingot with 10 mm in diameter and 15 mm in
height. The graphite flake is used to minimize the friction effect and
also to prevent the adhesion of the specimen on the tool. To study
the flow behavior and the microstructure evolution during the
deformation, the hot compression tests are carried out under
different strain rates (0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 s1) and forming temper-
atures (673, 723, 773 and 823 K). A large height reduction of 65% is
examined in experiments. The specimens are quenched in water
immediately after hot compression tests for obtaining the hot
deformation microstructure.
2.3. Flow stress behavior
The true stress-strain curves of AA6N01 under different condi-
tions are presented in Fig. 2. From this figure, the significant in-
fluences of temperature and strain rate on the flow stress are
observed and the flow stress increases with decreasing tempera-
ture and increasing strain rate. It is observed that the hot defor-
mation process is accompanied with two microstructure
phenomena simultaneously. One is the work hardening caused by
the dislocation tangling and multiplication, leading to the increase
of flow stress. Another is the dynamic softening consisted of dy-
namic recovery (DRV) and DRX. Dynamic softening is caused by the
vacancy diffusion, cross-slip of screw dislocations and climb of edge
dislocations [32], which reduces the deformation resistance. At the
early stage of deformation, work hardening dominates, which leads
to a rapidly stress increase for the continuous deformation. Then
the flow stress increases slowly until reaches a peak value due to
the equilibrium of work hardening and dynamic softening. After
then, the flow stress tends to slowly decline because of DRX.
2.4. Constitutive model
In this work, a physically-based constitutive model which is
firstly proposed by Merking et al. [25] is deduced and applied to
describe the hot deformation behavior of AA6N01. The expression
formulation of this constitutive model is as follows:
61
8    
>
>
> s ¼ s2sat þ s20  s2sat eUε
<
ssat ¼ a1 sinh1 ða2 Z a3 Þ (1)
>
>
> s0 ¼ b1 ln Z  b2
:
U ¼ c 1 Z c2
where, U is the coefficient of dynamic recovery [33], ssat and s0 are
the saturated and yield stresses (MPa), respectively [29]. And they
are all closely related to the Zener-Hollomon parameter, which can
 
be expressed as Z ¼ ε_ exp RT Q
. T is the absolute temperature (K), R
is the universal gas constant (8.314 J mol1 K1), Q is the apparent
activation energy of hot deformation (J mol1). In Eq. (1), a1, a2, a3,
b1, b2, c1 and c2 are material parameters.
To accurately calculate the material parameters in this consti-
tutive equation, the inverse analysis is carried out based on mode-
FRONTIER. Here, the minimization of the error between the
experimental and predicted forces is set as the optimization
objective, and then eight unknown material parameters of the
constitutive model are identified by the inverse analysis. The flow
chart of the inverse analysis method and detailed steps are shown
in the previous work [34].
It is worth noting that there is a significant difference between
the true stress-strain curves at 10 s1 and those with other strain
rates, as shown in Fig. 2. At 10 s1, more significant effect of work
hardening on flow stress is caused by the intersections and pileups
of dislocation. Therefore, the material parameters of the physically-
based constitutive model at strain rate of 10 s1 and other strain
rates are calculated respectively by inverse analysis technique. The
optimum material parameters at 10 s1 and other strain rates are
shown in Table 2.
The comparisons between the force-displacement curves under
different deformation conditions determined by inverse analysis
method and experiments are shown in Fig. 3. There is a good
agreement between the predicted and experimental curves. Espe-
cially, the calculated global error is only 3.21% when the strain rate
is less than 10 s1. When the strain rate is 10 s1, there is deviation
between predicted and experimental results with the global error
of 4.85%. This indicates that the identified material parameters of
the constitutive model could be used to well describe the hot
deformation behavior of the AA6N01.
62 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
Fig. 2. True stress-true strain curves of AA6N01 under different strain rates. (a) 0.01 s1 (b) 0.1 s1 (c) 1.0 s1 (d) 10 s1.
Table 2
Material parameters obtained by the inverse analysis method.
a1 a2 a3 b1
1
0.01e1 s 46.78 0.000308 0.21 0.39
10 s1 30.43 0.000156 0.26 0.13
3. Identification of the type of DRX
For each specimen, seven observation points (noted as P1-P7) are
selected for the following optical and EBSD analysis, as shown in
Fig. 4. The specimens are observed by optical microscope (OM) and
Sirion 200 field emission gun scanning electron microscope
equipped with EBSD system.
Fig. 5 shows the inverse pole figure (IPF) maps from EBSD scan
and misorientation distributions of P4 and P7 at 773 K and 0.1s1,
where f is the fraction of the grain boundaries with misorientation
angles between 2 and 15
(also known as low-angle boundaries:
LABs). Fig. 5(a) and (c) show the experimental analysis near P4,
where the strain is small. From these figures, the original equiaxed
grains elongate perpendicular to the compression direction, and
most subgrains appear along original grain boundaries and a few
subgrains in grain interiors as a result of dynamic recovery. Ac-
cording to Fig. 5(c), the percent of LABs is about 71.7%, indicating
that the substructure dominates at a small level of strain. The IPF
map and mis-orientation distribution of P7 with a large strain are
shown in Fig. 5(b) and (d). The deformation grains are replaced by
equiaxed recrystallized grains (Fig. 5(b)). The fraction of LABs re-
duces to 53.28% (Fig. 5(d)), indicating that LABs gradually transform
b2 c1 c2 Q(J/mol) Error
1.34 236.05 0.41 161310 3.21%
1.25 207.25 0.06 177980 4.85%
into high-angle boundaries (HABs) with the increase of strain and
many new equiaxed recrystallized grains form finally. This phe-
nomenon coincides well with experimental description of CDRX in
literature [4].
From EBSD analysis on P7 at 673 K and 1s1 as shown in Fig. 6,
most grains are strip-shaped perpendicular to the compression
direction and the grain boundaries are serrated. In certain domains,
where the true strain is about 1.5, grain boundaries serrate seri-
ously and the grain thickness is in the order of 2e3 times the
subgrain size, consequently, the grain is pinched-off into new
recrystallization grains. This phenomenon is similar to the GDRX
described by McQueen et al. [6].
According to observations and analysis of metallurgical micro-
structures under all experimental conditions (strain rate:
0.01e10 s1 and temperature: 673e823 K), we conclude that the
type of DRX is closely associated with the deformation tempera-
ture. When the temperature is greater than 673 K, CDRX occurs
during the hot deformation of AA6N01. When the temperature is
673 K, the recrystallization mechanism is different from other
conditions, and some strip-shaped coarse grains are pinched off
into the fine equiaxed grains through GDRX.
 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
Fig. 3. Comparison between experimental and predicted force-displacement curves under different conditions. (a) 673 K (b) 723 K (c) 773 K (d) 823 K.
Fig. 4. Location of observation points for OM and EBSD analysis.
4. Establishment of the grain size evolution model
In this section, the DRX kinetic model, DRX grain size model and
deformed grain size model are successively built to describe the
deformed grains and equiaxed recrystallized grains, respectively.
And by integrating above three models, a grain size evolution
model is finally developed to predict the microstructure evolution
during hot deformation of AA6N01.
4.1. DRX kinetic model
The kinetics of DRX is usually described as a function of the time.
63
When the strain rate is constant, the time could be replaced by
strain to calculate the fraction of DRX. Considering the DRX kinetic
models describing aluminum alloy [35e37] in literature, the frac-
tion of dynamic recrystallized grains (XDRX) of AA6N01 is expressed
as the following equation:
   
ε  εc m
XDRX ¼ 1  exp  k (2)
εss
where, Ɛc is the strain for the beginning of DRX, Ɛss is the saturated
strain when DRX happens completely, k and m are material pa-
rameters which could be regarded as constants [14]. In addition, the
kinetics of DRX could be also calculated by Eq. (3).
ssat  s
XDRX ¼ (3)
ssat  sss
where, ssat and sss are the saturated stress of DRV and DRX,
respectively.
As for AA6N01, DRX happens completely only when deforma-
tion is up to a large level. However, such large deformation can't be
achieved through hot compression test. In order to obtain the
values of Ɛc, Ɛss, ssat and sss, the experimental stress-strain curve
should be fitted and prolonged.
According to the work-hardening theory [38e40], the values of
sc, Ɛss, ssat and sss could be obtained based on the relation between
the work-hardening rate (q ¼ ds/dƐ) and flow stress (s). sc is the
inflection point of q-s curve (indicated by blue rectangles in Fig. 7.),
while ssat can be determined as the horizontal intercept of the
tangent line of q-s plot through the inflection point (indicated by
black rectangles in Fig. 7) [41].
64 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70

Fig. 5. EBSD analysis for observation points P4 and P7. (a) and (b) IPF maps, (c)and (d) misorientation distribution.

Fig. 7. q-s curves under the deformation temperature 723 K and different strain rates.

Fig. 6. GDRX observation from EBSD scan on P7 at 673 K and 1s1.
The values of could be obtained from the stress-strain curves
based on the value of sc. A good linear relation is observed between
Ɛc and Z, as shown in Fig. 8(a). The relation could be expressed as
Eq. (4).
Ɛss and sss could be obtained from stress-strain curve base on this
point. There is a good linear relation between Ɛss and Z, as shown in
Fig. 8(b). The relationship could be expressed as Eq. (5).
εss ¼ 0:1354Z 0:4811 (5)
To obtain parameters k and m in Eq. (1), Eq. (1) and Eq. (2) are
combined together and transformed into the following expression:

εc ¼ 0:01978Z 0:07934 (4)  

ε  εc
lnf  ð  lnð1  XDRX ÞÞg ¼ k ln þm (6)
DRX is considered to be complete when q ¼ 1, and the values of εs
 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
Fig. 8. Relationship between (a) lnZ-lnƐc, (b) lnz-lnƐsat.
Through linear regression method, the values of m and k are
determined as 1.823 and 1.109 respectively. Finally, the DRX kinetic
model is built as Eq. (7).
(  1:109 )
ε  εc
XDRX ¼ 1  exp  1:823
εss
4.2. DRX grain size model
Taking the microstructures on P7 at the center of specimen
under different experimental conditions as an example, the effects
of deformation temperature and strain rate on microstructure are
investigated as shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that the deformation
temperature and strain rate have great influences on the DRX
behavior for AA6N01. The recrystallized grain size increases with
the increasing temperature and the decreasing strain rate.
In order to quantitatively investigate the effects of deformation
conditions (deformation temperature and strain rate) on the
average recrystallized grain size (dDRX), the microstructures of P7
under different conditions are analyzed and dDRX is calculated by
Nano Measure software. The relationships between dDRX and
deformation conditions are shown in Fig. 10.
It can be seen from Fig. 10(a) that dDRX decreases with the
increasing strain rate, which can be expressed as a function of lnð_εÞ
in Eq. (8), while a linear relationship between dDRX and the defor-
mation temperature is observed from Fig. 10(b). In order to more
precisely predict, the influence of deformation temperature on dDRX
should be considered. In this work, the values of parameters (L, M,
N) in Eq. (8) are calculated at different temperatures. The correla-
tions of the parameters with deformation temperature are depicted
in Fig. 11.
dDRX ¼ L lnð_εÞ2 þ M lnð_εÞ þ N
The relationships between the parameters (L, M, N) and defor-
mation temperature are obtained by polynomial fitting, as shown
in Eq. (9). And the values of polynomial fitting coefficients of L, M
and N are listed in Table 3.
LðTÞ ¼ l3 T 3 þ l2 T 2 þ l1 T þ l0
MðTÞ ¼ m2 T 2 þ m1 T þ m0
NðTÞ ¼ n1 T þ n0
65
Therefore, the average recrystallized grain size can be expressed
by the following equation, where L(T), M(T) and N(T) are the
polynomial functions of deformation temperature.
dDRX ¼ LðTÞlnð_εÞ2 þ MðTÞlnð_εÞ þ NðTÞ (10)
(7)
4.3. Deformed grain size model
In this section, a model describing the deformed grain size
evolution during the hot deformation of AA6N01 is built by
combining experimental observation and numerical simulation,
the detailed steps are as follows:
(1) The hot compression process is simulated in ABAQUS. To
improve the computational efficiency, a 2D axi-symmetric
model is built in the simulation, as shown in Fig. 12. Seven
elements (noted E1-E7 in Fig. 12.) are used to output the
strain values corresponding to the observation points. Then
the physically-based constitutive model of AA6N01 obtained
by reverse analysis is embedded into ABAQUS to simulate the
hot compression process under different experimental
conditions.
(2) When the FE simulation is completed, the plastic strains on
seven elements of the model are output corresponding to the
experimental observation points. Fig. 13 shows the plastic
strain distribution of the specimen at 773 K and 10 s1 and
their values on seven elements.
(3) Microstructures of seven observation points (from P1 to P7)
are obtained by OM analysis as shown in Fig. 14. It could be
seen that there is a mixture of deformation and recrystalli-
zation microstructure in different points. In this section, the
thickness and length of the deformed elongated grains on
the observation points are measured by Nano Measure
(8) software.
(4) The relations between the measured elongated grains are
shown in Fig. 15. It can be seen that grain length continuously
increases while thickness decreases until up to a steady state.
Little influence of deformation temperature and strain rate
on the elongated grain size is observed.
(5) By series of calculation and analysis, the grain thickness and
(9) length can be regressed with the following expressions in Eq.
(11), where ddt and ddl represent thickness and length of
elongated grains, respectively.
66 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70

Fig. 9. Optical microstructures of P7 under different conditions. (a) 723 K, 1 s1 (b) 773 K, 1 s1 (c) 773 K, 0.1 s1 (d) 773 K, 10 s1.

Fig. 10. Relationships between: (a) dDRX and strain rate, (b) dDRX and deformation temperature.

4.4. Grain size evolution model

8  1
>
< ddt ¼ 165  1 þ 10ð0:883ε0:359Þ þ 18 To build the grain size evolution model, both the elongated
 1 (11) deformation grains and equiaxed recrystallization grains are
>
: d ¼ 249:54  129:54  1 þ 1:64ε 1:21
dl considered. Combined the models of DRX kinetics model (Eq. (7)),
recrystallized grain size model (Eq. (10)) and deformed grain size
 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70 67

Fig. 11. Relationships between the parameters (L, M, N) and deformation temperature.

Table 3 model (Eq. (11)), a model is established to predict the grain size
Polynomial fitting coefficients of L, M and N. evolution during hot deformation of AA6N01, as shown in Eq. (12),
L M N where dt and dl represents average grain thickness and length.
l0 127.56 m0 57.61 n0 75.33 
l1 0.53 m1 0.15 n1 0.12 dt ¼ dDRX  XDRX þ ddt  ð1  XDRX Þ
(12)
l2 7.19  104 m2 9.93  105 dl ¼ dDRX  XDRX þ ddl  ð1  XDRX Þ
l3 3.26  107

5. The validation of the grain size evolution model

In this section, the obtained grain size evolution model is then

implemented in Deform-3D by the USR-UPD subroutine to predict
the microstructure evolution during the hot compression test and
extrusion process. At the same time, the identified constitutive
equation is carried out by the USR-MTR subroutine to describe the
flow behavior of AA6N01.

5.1. Prediction of the grain size during hot compression test

The comparison between grain thickness distributions by

Fig. 12. FE model of the hot compression test.
experimental observation and numerical simulation is shown in
Fig. 16. It is seen that the built model could reasonably predict the
grain size and its distribution. The grains in the center of the
specimen are relatively small caused by deformation and recrys-
tallization behaviors, while the material remains almost un-
deformed in the region contacting with tooling head because of
mainly deformation effect.
In order to quantify the accuracy of the built grain size model,
the grain thicknesses on the 19 points are chosen and compared at
68 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70

Fig. 13. Plastic strain distribution at 773 K and 10 s1.

Fig. 14. Optical microstructures of the observation points at 773 K and 10s1.

Fig. 15. Evolution of grain thickness (a) and grain length (b) in terms of effective strain.

723 K and 0.1s1, as shown in Fig. 17. A very good agreement is
observed between experimental measurement and model predic-
tion. Therefore, the average grain size model established in this
work can reasonably predict the grain size evolution of AA6N01
during hot compression process.
5.2. Prediction of the grain size during hot extrusion process
The built grain size model is then extended to hot extrusion
process and to predict the microstructure evolution at large level of
strain. The numerical model and experimental setup of hot
 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70 69

Table 4
Values of extrusion process parameters.

Extrusion parameters values

Billet diameter (mm) 39.5

Extrusion ratio 16
Friction coefficient 0.3
Billet temperature (K) 673
Extrusion speed (mm/s) 0.8
Heat transfer coefficient between billet and die (N/(s mm K)) 3000

Fig. 16. Comparison between the predicted and measured grain thickness size.

Fig. 19. Comparison between the predicted and measured grain thickness size.

Table 5
Comparison between the predicted and measured value of 6 chosen points.

Chosen points 1 2 3 4 5 6

Predict value (mm) 117 105 78.4 25.3 15.4 121

Measured value (mm) 123.6 110.7 72.3 23.3 14.1 124.9
Error 7.69% 4.76% 8.43% 8.58% 7.09% 3.12%

Fig. 17. Grain thickness size on 19 chosen points on specimen at 723 K and 0.1s1.

Table 5. A maximum error with 8.58% on P4 is observed. Therefore,

extrusion process are shown in Fig. 18. The values of extrusion
process parameters for both FE simulation and experiment are
shown in Table 4.
Fig. 19 shows the predicted results of grain thickness distribu-
tion and the optical observation of the material inside container. It
is found that the values of grain thickness at the zones close to the
porthole are smaller than those in the center of container. The
material remains almost un-deformed at the dead metal zone.
Furthermore, by comparing the predicted results and measured
grains, the numerical distribution of grain thickness is in good
accordance with the experimental results.
To further verify the accuracy of simulation results, the grain
thicknesses of the 6 points are chosen and compared, as listed in
the built grain size evolution model could be globally used to
predict the microstructures within a large range of strain.
6. Conclusions
In this work, the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) behavior and
microstructure evolution of AA6N01 were investigated by experi-
mental observations and mathematical modeling. The main con-
clusions were drawn as follows:
(1) A physically-based constitutive model was established to
describe the flow behavior of AA6N01 and eight parameters
in this model were determined by inverse analysis method.

Fig. 18. Numerical model and experimental setup of hot extrusion.

70 C. Zhang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 773 (2019) 59e70
There was a good agreement between the predicted and
measured force, indicating that the identified constitutive
equation by the inverse analysis could be applied to accu-
rately describe the hot deformation behavior of AA6N01.
(2) Based on EBSD analysis, DRX was observed for AA6N01 un-
der all deformation conditions (temperature form 673 K to
823 K and strain rate from 0.01s1 to 10 s1), however, the
type of DRX was associated with the deformation tempera-
ture at the strain level of 1.5. When deformation temperature
was greater than 673 K, CDRX phenomenon occurred, while
GDRX was observed at 673 K.
(3) DRX kinetic model, DRX grain size model and deformed grain
size model were successively built and integrated to describe
the deformed elongated grains and equiaxed recrystallized
grains during hot deformation of AA6N01.
(4) By comparing with the experimental measurements and
model predictions of grain size during hot compression and
hot extrusion, there were very good agreements with a
maximum error with 8.58%. Therefore, the built grain size
evolution model in this work could be effectively used to
predict the microstructure evolution during the hot
deformation.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from
National Natural Science Foundation of China (51575315,
U1708251), Fund of Science and Technology Development of
Guangdong Province (2017A010103003), and Science Fund for
Distinguished Young Scholars of Shandong Province (JQ201810).
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