An analysis of the surface quality of AA5182 at different testing temperatures

•Surface quality improvement of AA5182.•Suppressing PLC effect at low temperatures.•Sheet metal surface analysis by means of Power Spectral Density plots.

Aluminium sheet metal alloys in the 5000 series exhibit a bad surface quality if deformed at ambient temperatures. The change in surface deviation can be attributed to the Portevin–LeChatelier (PLC) effect, which is not desirable in terms of visual perception. This investigation shows the surface topography of an AA5182 aluminium wrought alloy after specimens were subjected to uniaxial tensile loading at temperatures ranging from 373 to 173 K. The influence of the PLC effect is analysed in terms of surface deviation parameters. The quality of the surface structure is characterised using a Power Spectral Density (PSD) algorithm. It is demonstrated, that the surface quality of an AA5182 aluminium alloy can be significantly enhanced if the material is exposed to sub-zero temperatures.