Cryogenic rolling-enhanced mechanical properties and microstructural evolution of 5052 Al-Mg alloy

The microstructure/mechanical properties, annealing behavior, and post-annealed microstructure/property relationship of 5052 Al alloy processed by cryogenic rolling (CR) and room-temperature rolling (RTR) have been investigated. It was observed that the CR-processed 5052 Al alloy exhibits a refined crystallite size along with higher-density dislocations than that of the RTR-processed sample. As a result, the tensile strength of the CR-processed alloy increased significantly to 345 MPa because of the enhanced dislocation strengthening and grain-boundary strengthening. The effective suppression of dynamic recovery and accumulation of high-density dislocations caused by CR help accelerate recrystallization kinetics and refine the grain size, gaining higher yield strength for the post-annealed CR 5052 Al alloy compared to that of other commercial 5052-O Al alloys.