Investigations on residual stress distributionfor 2A02 aluminum forgings

High strength aluminum alloys have been widely used in aviation manufacturing due to their favorable combination of intensity, stress corrosion resistance and toughness. However, the research and control of residual stress distribution in aluminum components have become a key issue to be solved during the heat treatment and subsequent processes. By means of the analysis of micro-indentation method and ANSYS finite element method, the residual stress distribution in 2A02 aluminum components after water quenching were systematically investigated, mainly considering two factors of the symmetry of structure and the variation of surface constraint. This study may give great help to the technology of relieving forgings residual stress of two alloys. The results of micro-indentation method show that the absolute value of the residual stress within the sample tends to decrease as the condition of constraint increase at the location of the same thickness; the absolute value of the surface residual stress also tends to decrease as the thickness of the sample increase with the same constraint conditions. The tested results by micro-indentation method are in consistent with the results of finite element simulation to a great extent. The results of finite element simulation are as follows: for these two aluminum alloy, the stress field distribution during the process of quenching is mainly influenced by the thickness of the samples. In general, at the initial stage of the quenching process, the stress state at the components surface are controlled by tensile stress in the direction of both thickness and width, while the residual stress within the samples is dominated by compressive stress; at the end of the quenching process, the stress field distribution just turn to the opposite. These results are in great agreement with the corresponding results of the indentation method.