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Research Papers

# Polycrystal Simulations Investigating the Effect of Additional Slip System Availability in a 6063 Aluminum Alloy at Elevated Temperature

[+] Author and Article Information
Antoinette M. Maniatty1

Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180maniaa@rpi.edu

David J. Littlewood

Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180

Jing Lu2

Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180

1

Corresponding author.

2

Present address: Wellstream International, Houston, TX.

J. Eng. Mater. Technol 130(2), 021019 (Mar 19, 2008) (9 pages) doi:10.1115/1.2884338 History: Received August 01, 2007; Revised January 25, 2008; Published March 19, 2008

## Abstract

In order to better understand and predict the intragrain heterogeneous deformation in a 6063 aluminum alloy deformed at an elevated temperature, when additional slip systems beyond the usual octahedral slip systems are active, a modeling framework for analyzing representative polycrystals under these conditions is presented. A model polycrystal that has a similar microstructure to that observed in the material under consideration is modeled with a finite element analysis. A large number of elements per grain (more than 1000) are used to capture well the intragranular heterogeneous response. The polycrystal model is analyzed with three different sets of initial orientations. A compression test is used to calibrate the material model, and a macroscale simulation of the compression test is used to define the deformation history applied to the model polycrystal. In order to reduce boundary condition effects, periodic boundary conditions are applied to the model polycrystal. To investigate the effect of additional slip systems expected to be active at elevated temperatures, the results considering only the 12 {111}⟨110⟩ slip systems are compared to the results with the additional 12 {110}⟨110⟩ and {001}⟨110⟩ slip systems available (i.e., 24 available slip systems). The resulting predicted grain structure and texture are compared to the experimentally observed grain structure and texture in the 6063 aluminum alloy compression sample as well as to the available data in the literature, and the intragranular misorientations are studied.

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## Figures

Figure 4

Inverse pole figure made prior to deformation showing the composite set orientations used in the simulations. The [010] direction corresponds to the loading axis in the compression test.

Figure 5

Final microstructure of 6063 aluminum alloy subjected to uniaxial compression to a final height that is 33% of the initial height. EBSD scan is taken on material near the center of the specimen. The inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [001] sample direction, which is a transverse direction ([010] is the compression axis).

Figure 6

Inverse pole figures showing texture of compressed 6063 aluminum alloy sample near the center of the specimen with respect to a transverse direction [001] and the compression direction [010].

Figure 1

Microstructure of cast and homogenized 6063 aluminum alloy prior to deformation. The image was colored using a [010] inverse-pole-figure color map, where [010] is the loading direction.

Figure 2

Inverse pole figure showing texture for cast and homogenized 6063 aluminum alloy prior to deformation. The image is with respect to the [010] sample direction, where [010] is the loading direction.

Figure 3

Initial model grain structures. (a), (b), and (c) depict the three sets of orientations considered. The inverse-pole-figure color map is shown on the right and is with respect to the [010] sample direction (compression axis). The same color map is used for all simulation results.

Figure 7

[010] (compression axis) inverse pole figures showing predicted resulting textures where the results from all the three orientation sets are combined: (a) 12 slip system cases and (b) 24 slip system cases.

Figure 8

Polycrystals compressed to 60% of their initial height with 12 slip systems available. (a), (b), and (c) are the three orientation sets considered. The inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [010] sample compression axis.

Figure 9

Polycrystals compressed to 60% of their initial height with 24 slip systems available. (a), (b), and (c) are the three orientation sets considered. The inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [010] sample compression axis.

Figure 10

Initial slice on an x-y plane for the three orientation sets considered. The inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [010] sample compression axis.

Figure 11

Deformed slices on an x-y plane for cases allowing only 12 slip systems for the three orientation sets considered. The inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [010] sample compression axis.

Figure 12

Deformed slices on an x-y plane for cases allowing all 24 slip systems for the three orientation sets considered. Inverse-pole-figure color map is with respect to the [010] sample compression axis.

Figure 13

Deformed slice on an x-y plane showing the kernel average misorientation for the second orientation set. (a) 12 slip system case, (b) 24 slip system case.

Figure 14

Misorientation distributions within a single grain comparing the 12 slip system case with the 24 slip system case

Figure 15

Probability distribution showing predicted probability for a given number of slip systems for locations throughout the polycrystals at maximum compression for both the cases considering 12 slip systems and 24 slip systems

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