Anisotropy in flow and microstructural evolution during superplastic deformation of a layered-microstructured AA8090 Al–Li alloy

The superplastic forming grade sheets of AA8090 Al–Li alloy were observed to contain layers of different microstructure and microtexture across their cross-section along the normal to the rolling direction (RD). The surface layer (SL) material contained coarse equiaxed grains and the dominance of S {1 2 3}[6 3 4] texture whereas the center layer (CL) material contained fine elongated grains and the dominance of Bs {1 1 0}[1 1 2] texture. Tensile specimens, machined to represent the SL of 0.6 mm thickness from the surface towards center (SL), the CL of 0.6 mm thickness, obtained by removing the material of 0.6 mm thickness from each surface towards center (CL), and full thickness (FL) material of 1.8 mm thick, in a sheet of AA8090 Al–Li alloy, were deformed at optimum superplastic condition of strain rate=1×10−3 s−1 and temperature=803 K to investigate the effect of loading direction. In SL material, the specimen parallel to RD exhibited maximum and the specimen perpendicular to RD exhibited minimum flow stresses. This trend was reversed in CL material. The anisotropy in flow stress could be explained on the basis of texture in the SL material, but the contribution of grain directionality became important in the CL material. The flow behavior of FL material was found to consist of the composite-like contributions of SL and CL materials.