Mechanical properties and microstructural evolution of Al 6061 alloy processed by multidirectional forging at liquid nitrogen temperature

• Al 6061 alloy is multidirectionally forged (MDF) at liquid nitrogen temperature.
• Mechanical properties of the MDF samples are investigated.
• Microstructural evolution with deformation strains are evaluated.
• MDF sample at cryo temperature showed substantial improvement in UTS: 388 MPa.

Al–Mg–Si alloy was subjected to multidirectional forging (MDF) at liquid nitrogen temperature (LNT), to cumulative strains of 1.8, 3.6 and 5.4. The deformed microstructures were examined by optical microscopy under polarized light and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The deformed samples showed the formation of dislocation cells structure with high dislocation density at lower strains. Composite structure consisting of lamellar morphology at deformation bands and equiaxed grain morphology was observed. Significant differences in microstructure of the deformed samples were observed with increasing strain at LNT. At cumulative strain of 5.4, the microstructure shows nearly equiaxed subgrain structure with an average size of 250 nm with high angle grain boundaries. The mechanical properties were studied through Vickers hardness testing machine and tensile tester. The hardness value of MDFed alloy at LNT has increased from 50 Hv to 115 Hv for cumulative strain of 5.4. Tensile strength has increased from 180 MPa to 388 MPa with 4.5% percentage of elongation to failure. The improvement in hardness and tensile strength of forged alloy is attributed to the formation of equiaxed sub-grain structures and the presence of high dislocation density.