Dynamic Precipitation in Supersaturated Al–Zn–Mg–Cu Alloy During Warm Stretching

High-strength Al–Zn–Mg–Cu alloys such as AA7075 rely on precipitation to obtain their properties, and the evolution of these precipitates can be strongly influenced by deformation. In this study, the effect of warm stretching on precipitation in supersaturated AA7075 was investigated. A dilatometer was used to enable rapid quenching directly from the solution treatment temperature to the warm stretching temperature. The evolution of precipitates was monitored using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). SAXS revealed the presence of clusters only 5 seconds after quenching, and the subsequent evolution of the microstructure involved the growth and coarsening of these clusters. Deformation strongly enhanced the cluster/precipitate growth rate, which increased linearly with increasing strain. A strain rate effect was also noted, with the growth rate being faster at the higher strain rate for the same strain level. However, the acceleration of growth with increasing strain rate was not sufficient to compensate for the reduced time, so that deformation at higher strain rate led to small precipitates (at iso-strain). TEM revealed the precipitates to be homogeneously dispersed in the matrix both with and without deformation. There was no evidence for enhanced nucleation due to deformation, indeed the opposite was the case, with fewer but larger precipitates observed in the deformed microstructure. The linear increase in growth rate with strain is consistent with a dominant effect of excess vacancies in enhancing diffusion rates.