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The Large Strain Flow Stress Behaviour of Aluminium Alloys as Measured by

Channel-Die Compression (20-500°C)

Article  in  Materials Science Forum · January 2006

DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/MSF.519-521.783

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Materials Science Forum Vols. 519-521 (2006) pp. 783-788
online at http://www.scientific.net
© (2006) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

The large strain flow stress behaviour of aluminium alloys as measured

by channel-die compression (20-500°C)

A. Bacha1,2,a, Cl. Maurice2,b H. Klocker2,c and J.H. Driver2,d

1
Alcan Centre de Recherches de Voreppe, BP 27, 38341 Voreppe Cedex, France
2
Microstructures and Processing Department, Ecole des Mines de St Etienne, 158 Cours Fauriel,
42023 Saint Etienne, France
a
Alexis.Bacha@alcan.com, bmaurice@emse.fr, cklocker @emse.fr, ddriver @emse.fr

Keywords: Large plastic strains, work hardening, plane strain compression, Al alloys, sheet metal.

Abstract. Two recent methods for obtaining flow stress-strain relations up to large strains of order
1.5 by channel-die compression are presented:
i) for sheet metal formability tests, composite samples have been made of glued sheet layers and
deformed at room temperature in a channel-die with the compression axis directed along one of the
sheet metal edge directions, i.e. RD or TD. The sheet plane is parallel to the lateral compression die
face. It is shown that, using a suitable lubricant, the sample deformation is homogeneous up to
strains of 1.5. Tests carried out on 5xxx and 6xxx alloys to evaluate the stress-strain relations show
that a generalized Voce law gives a good quantitative fit for the data.
ii) for high temperature plate processing, quantitative flow stress data can be obtained up to 500°C
with a rapid quench using a hot channel-die set-up. Some new results are presented here for high
strain hot PSC tests on Al-Mn and Al-Mg alloys together with microstructure analyses.

Introduction
An accurate knowledge of the flow stress-strain relations up to large strains of order 2 is
increasingly important for understanding both room temperature formability and high temperature
processing. They are the basis of constitutive equations as used, for example, in finite element
simulations of shaping operations such as rolling, stamping or deep drawing. Currently, no
technique is available for such large strain testing on rolled sheets. In tensile tests on sheet
specimens, necking limits uniform strains to less than 0.5 and local stress-strain analysis during
necking is unreliable due to damage and the practical difficulties of measuring the local strain and
stress. Standard compression tests on cold rolled sheets (typically 1mm thick) are also impossible
due to friction.
The present work shows how to obtain σ(ε) curves for large strains (of order 1−2) on thin metallic
sheets, in this case 1mm thick aluminium sheets. It is proposed that large strain room temperature
deformations can be achieved by channel die multiple pass compression on laminated samples [1].
Plane strain compression (PSC) has often been used to simulate metal behaviour during hot rolling
mostly by pressing a long punch into a hot plate sample. The channel-die test is an alternative PSC
test, which has recently been developed [2,3] to impose true high temperature PSC on smaller
samples without major friction. It is demonstrated here that the channel die equipment can be used
to obtain stress-strain data on both laminated samples of thin Al-alloy sheets and thick monobloc
samples to simulate hot rolling.

The channel die test rig

Figure 1 illustrates the channel die equipment built for the high temperature tests but also used for
more conventional room temperature PSC. It is described in detail in references [ 2,3 ] but one of
the original features is the mobile die wall which facilitates sample removal after unloading for a

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784 Aluminium Alloys 2006

rapid quench (<2 secs.) Applying a graphite + Teflon lubricant it can be used up to about 500°C.
The sample width is the same as that of the channel die, i.e. 7 mm here.
.

Fig 2 Composite thin

sheet sample before
deformation.

Fig 1 Schematic of hot channel – die PSC equipment [2,3]

Composite thin sheet samples

The composite thin sheet samples consist of 7 layers of 1mm thick Al alloy sheets (Figure 2). The
sheets were first machined into strips 1mm thick 9.01 mm wide and 10.01 mm long and then a stack
of seven bonded in the rolling plane with a cyanoacylate glue. This composite sample was then
embedded in a transparent acrylic resin and all 4 faces destined to be in contact with the die walls
polished successively in an automatic polishing machine to the required dimensions. The two other
sample faces were polished manually. The thickness of the glue layer between two adjacent sheets
is less than 10 µm so the area reduction due to the glue layer is below 1 per cent. The composite
samples were channel-die compressed with the strip, or rolling plane, parallel to the die walls along
either of the two other directions (TD or RD).
Lubrication is a critical aspect of the channel-die test. The composite sample is wrapped in PTFE
(Teflon) ribbon of 50µm thickness which possesses very low friction coefficients. However,
although PTFE stretches and deforms with the sample as required it can undergo localised tearing at
strains typically of unity. Therefore two step deformations were used: during the first pass, samples
were deformed up to strains of about 0.6 and then, after cutting off the ends, the sample was
wrapped in a new PTFE ribbon and compressed again. The glue allows some relative movement of
the different sheet layers but, after the first compression pass, the glue interface still holds.
Stress-strain relations on Al sheet samples. Two standard AA 5xxx and AA 6xxx Al alloys
used for automotive applications have been tested.
Figure 3 shows typical load-displacement curves corresponding to compression tests on AA6xxx
laminated sheet samples. Single pass and two step channel die compression tests were done at
constant strain rate. To obtain reliable stress strain curves, the displacement and the overall load
have been corrected for machine rigidity and friction, using a Tresca friction coeffient m=0.02, as
described in reference [1].
 Materials Science Forum Vols. 519-521 785

Fig.3 Example of load

displacement curves on
composite sheet samples of
the AA6xxx alloy. Pass ½
means the first of two
compression passes etc.

The resulting stress-strain curves for the two alloys are plotted out in Fig. 4 which also compares
the curves obtained by single pass and double pass compressions; the latter are clearly of better
quality at strains above about 0.6. They can be well represented by a modified Voce relation :

σy = σy0 + (σ∞ - σy0)(1-exp (-δ ε p )) + α ε p and ε p = ε - σy/E (1)

E is Young’s modulus. ε and ε p are respectively the total and the plastic equivalent strains. σ Yo is
the initial flow stress. σ ∞ corresponds to the stress at very large plastic strains in the Voce law. α ε p
is an additional term accounting for small positive strain hardening at large plastic strains.

Fig. 4 Equivalent stress strain curves on composite sheet samples of the two alloys and their
representation by the modified Voce equation.

Finite Element validation. Two finite element simulations of the channel die compression test
were used; the first to analyse friction between the sample and the channel die and thereby
determine m , and the second to analyse slip of the 7 sheet layers relative to each other. Only the
sample was meshed; the die and punch were represented as non deformable surfaces. The Abaqus®
explicit formulation with linear 8-node elements and reduced integration was used for both models.
786 Aluminium Alloys 2006

Friction between the sample and the test rig was modelled with a mono-block sample. The elements
were cubes of length 0.5 mm so that the sample was simulated with 14, 20 and 16 elements in the
width (x), length (y) and height (z) respectively. The load displacement curves corresponding to the
mono-block model were determined for several values of m and compared to the experimental two-
pass load displacement curves. Best agreement was obtained with a friction coefficient of 0.02.
To analyse the effect of slip between different sample layers, the shear strain distribution in the
sample was analysed using different "friction coefficients" between the layers. Figure 6 shows the
deformed meshes of the laminated sample, and the sheared ends, at ε =1.2. Figure 7 quantifies the
shear strain distributions for both the layered sample and the mono block model.
Large shear strains only occur at both ends of the sample so that the deformation can be considered
homogeneous in the sample centre (over 80 % of the sample volume) for all values of mlayer .

Fig. 6 FE simulation of a composite Fig 7 FE simulation of εzx strain in AA5xxx sample at

sheet sample deformed to ε =1.2 ε = 1 for two mlayer values (a,b:0.001 and c,d:0.1), (e) mono-
block model. (a,c,e) are surface and (b,d) central layers.

Work hardening. The large strain work hardening behaviour controls the stress – strain response
of the alloys over most of the formability range. Using the above Voce law and the appropriate

Fig 8 Work hardening coefficients of the 2 alloys from Voce law (with and without α in equation
1)
 Materials Science Forum Vols. 519-521 787

(
experimental coefficients, the work hardening coefficients n = ∂ ( ln σ Y ) / ∂ ln ε p ) have been
evaluated over the test strains as shown in Fig 8. Here, the strain dependency of the work hardening
coefficients n are compared with and without the additional linear term (α=0). Obviously,
neglecting this linear term (the large strain part of the stress strain curve) leads to incorrect values
of the strain hardening parameter. The Considère strain at the onset of necking in simple tension is
much less than 0.18 for these alloys. Figure 8 clearly confirms that one cannot extrapolate, to large
strains, the results of a tensile test up to necking. The present compression results have, however,
been successively used as input for modelling sheet metal trimming behaviour and formability.

Hot plane strain compression testing

The channel – die rig of figure 1 has been used extensively for hot PSC tests on aluminium alloys
up to about 500°C. The equipment, its operating procedure, validation tests and some original
results on hot deformation are detailed in reference [3]. A comparison of some hot uniaxial and
plane strain compression tests on AA 3103 has also been described in [4] and confirms the accuracy
of the stress-strain output data up to strains of 1.5. The important features are the good lubrication
that can be achieved using a mixture of graphite+Teflon, the plastic strain rate control up to about
20/sec, and the rapid quench that is possible by opening up the channel – die walls and pushing the
deformed sample into a water bath. Figure 9 gives an example of the sample temperature variation
during heating up, stabilization and quench. The ability to rapidly quench a sample after controlled
hot deformation is crucial to understanding microstructure and texture evolution during for example
hot rolling of many aluminium alloys. Fig. 10 illustrates the microstructure of an AA 3103 alloy
deformed in CDC to a strain of 1 at 500°C. At this temperature the alloy recrystallizes within a few
seconds so that the features of the deformation substructure are very difficult, if not impossible, to
obtain by conventional hot PSC tests. In the case of Fig. 10 the EBSD orientation map reveals the
sub-grain structure typical of hot deformation (and also the retained cube grains in darker grey).

Fig. 9 Typical thermal cycle of a CDC sample heated Fig. 10 EBSD orientation map of AA 3103
to 390°C, stabilized and quenched (thermocouple in alloy deformed in hot CDC to a strain of 1
sample centre) at 500°C and water quenched [3]

More recently the equipment has been used to impose larger plastic strains by multi-compression
passes. An Al-3%Mg- 0.25% Sc-0.12%Zr has been deformed in hot channel-die compression up to
equivalent plastic strains of 4.5 at temperatures up to 400°C. [5]. This alloy is suitable for multi-
pass tests since the Zr and Sc contents strongly inhibit recrystallization. The first compression is
carried out to a strain of 1.5 then, after cooling, the sample is sectioned into two parts which are
superposed – following the Accumulative Roll Bonding technique. The contact surfaces are
mechanically cleaned with abrasive paper to confer some adhesion and the sample lubrication
 788 Aluminium Alloys 2006

renewed. The hot channel – die compression test is then repeated to a strain about 3 and the sample
sectioning, cleaning and compression can be continued to a final strain of about 4.5. Figure 11 gives
some hot CDC stress-strain curves of the alloy obtained under these conditions.

Fig 11 Hot multiple

300
PSC stress-strain
curves on Al-3Mg–(Sc,
200°C Zr) alloy up to strains
Equivalent stress MPa

of 3 [5]
200
300°C

400°C
100

0
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3

Equivalent Strain

The rheology and microstructure development of the alloy under these conditions are described in
[5] and other forthcoming papers.

Summary
This paper describes work undertaken over the last few years at the Ecole des Mines de Saint
Etienne to develop controlled large strain deformation tests on Al alloys in order to quantify
constitutive laws in relation with microstructure development. The techniques are based on the
channel-die compression test using efficient, modern lubricants.
It is shown that sheet samples can be deformed fairly homogeneously up to strains of about 1.2 in
the form of glued composite specimens. The latter are compressed in a channel die along the sheet
edge directions (RD and TD) to give stress-strain curves and hence work hardening behaviour to
large strains. Tests on AA 5xxx and 6xxx alloys demonstrate a good agreement with a modified
Voce law.
High temperature channel-die compression is also performed to simulate hot rolling type
deformation with the advantages of controlled strain rates, temperatures and rapid quench. Hot
multi pass tests have recently been used to extend the applied strains to values over 3.

References
[1] A. Bacha, M. Feuerstein, Ch. Desrayaud and H. Klocker: submitted to J. Testing and
Evaluation.
[2] Cl. Maurice and J.H. Driver: Acta Metall. Mater. Vol. 41, (1993), p. 1653
[3] C. Maurice, D. Piot, H. Klocker and J.H. Driver: Metall. Mater. Trans. Vol. 36A (2005), 1039.
[4] K.F. Karhausen, J. Savoie, C.M. Allen, D. Piot and R. Luce: Proc. ICAA8, Mater. Sci. Forum,
2002, Vols. 396-402, pp. 371-378.
[5] S. Ringeval and J.H. Driver: Proc. ICAA10 (this conference).

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