The evolution of microstructures and mechanical properties during accumulative roll bonding of Al/Mg composite

Accumulative roll bonding (ARB) is a kind of severe plastic deformation process which can produce high strength metals with ultra-fine grained microstructure. Mechanical properties will be increased due to the ultra-fine grain structures. In this study, the ARB process is used, the snap–stack working to reduplicate Al (ASM-1100)/Mg (AZ31) alloy which is chosen and then made thinner and longer by rolling and repeating the processes. Steps of 12 layers are created. The ARB process creates a multilayer compound between Al/Mg layers with excellent bonding characteristics and fine grained microstructure. The bonding condition became ascendant gradually and increased from one to three cycles. The grain sizes of Al and Mg alloys were 875 nm and 656 nm after three cycles. The hardness of the Al and Mg alloys were raised to HV42 and HV90 after three cycles.