Effects of prebending radii on microstructure and fatigue performance of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu aluminum alloy after creep age forming

Abstract

A series of creep age forming experiments were carried out on 7075 aluminum alloy with different prebending radii at 443 K for 10 h. The hardness, tensile properties and high cycle fatigue performance of the alloy after creep age forming were obtained. In addition, the microstructure and fatigue fracture of the alloy were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that with the increase of the prebending radius, the hardness, strength and elongation of the alloy increased; meanwhile, the conditional fatigue limit increased, the size of precipitated phase decreased and the quantity increased, while the width of precipitate free zone decreased.