Impact of grain microstructure on the heterogeneity of precipitation strengthening in an Al–Li–Cu alloy

The effect of grain microstructure on the age-hardening behavior is investigated on recrystallized and un-recrystallized Al–Cu–Li alloys by combining electron-backscatter-diffraction and micro-hardness mapping. The spatial heterogeneity of micro-hardness is found to be strongly dependent on the grain microstructure. Controlled experiments are carried out to change the pre-strain before artificial ageing. These experiments lead to an evaluation of the range of local strain induced by pre-stretching as a function of the grain microstructure and results in heterogeneous formation of the hardening T1 precipitates.