Texture Control for Improving Deep Drawability in Rolled and Annealed Aluminum Alloy Sheets

In order to find a possibility of texture control for improving deep drawability in rolled and annealed aluminum alloys, the relation among recrystallization texture, r-value and limiting drawing ratio was examined for sheet materials with various textures. By using specimens with {111} texture prepared artificially, limiting drawing ratio could be measured in a wide range of average r-value from 0.4 to 1.6. Experimental results demonstrated that there was a positive correlation between average r-value and limiting drawing ratio even in aluminum alloys. This means that an increase in average r-value leads to improvement of deep drawability. Warm rolling that forms shear texture including {111} components, therefore, was conducted to enhance average r-value for Al-Mg and Al-Mg-Si alloys. Recrystallization texture of an annealed Al-Mg alloy consisted of retained shear texture components in the surface layer and cube plus R orientations in the center layer. The average r-value was considerably improved compared with that of a cold rolled sheet. On the other hand, a T4-treated Al-Mg-Si alloy had a relatively weak cube texture on the whole, though the surface layer showed a different texture from the center. In this case, warm rolling was ineffective in improving average r-value, in spite of the existence of surface texture with higher r-value. However, the relation between recrystallization texture and experimental r-value was successfully explained for the Al-Mg-Si alloy as well as for the Al-Mg alloy, based on r-value calculations from overall texture through sheet thickness.