High strain-rate superplasticity of fine- and ultrafine-grained AA5083 aluminum alloy at intermediate temperatures

•SRS index of the material significantly increases after just one pass of DECLE.•HSRS is observed for the fine-grained AA5083 alloy at an intermediate temperature.•The highest m (0.43) is observed for the 1-passed sample at a temperature of 673 K.•The greater the number of passes, the lower is the SRS index compared the 1st pass.

Superplastic behavior of fine and ultra fine-grained AA5083 Al alloy was examined using the shear punch test. To achieve fine- and ultra fine-grained microstructures, a relatively new severe plastic deformation (SPD) process, namely Double Equal Channel Lateral Extrusion (DECLE) was employed. The strain rate sensitivity indices (m) of samples were evaluated after 1, 2, 4, and 6 passes for shear strain rates in the range of 3 × 10− 3 to 3 × 10− 1 s− 1 and temperatures in the range of 573 to 673 K. For microstructural observations, TEM images together with the corresponding SAED patterns were prepared and utilized. A considerable increase in the m-value was observed after the first pass of the operation for all testing temperatures. The best condition for achieving a good superplasticity for the alloy was found to be a single pass DECLE at 673 K in the strain rate range of 10− 2 to 10− 1 s− 1. This process condition resulted in an m-value of 0.43, indicative of a high strain rate superplastic deformation behavior. Further passes of the SPD process did not show any sign of superplasticity until the last pass of the operation, during which the m-value slightly increased, compared with the previous pass.

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