Regulating hardness homogeneity and corrosion resistance of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy via ECAP combined with inter-pass aging

The novel processing strategies of Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) combined with inter-pass aging was designed, and XRD, SEM, TEM, electrochemical testing, and hardness testing were used to evaluate the relationship between microstructure and performance of alloys in this work. The results indicate that the hardness uniformity of the circular cross-section perpendicular to the extrusion direction was improved by combining ECAP with inter-pass aging, resulting in a hardness inhomogeneity factor (∼0.030) that was lower than that achieved by peak aging and double-stage aging alloys. Polarization curves and electrochemical impedance spectra show that a more negative corrosion potential and a smaller corrosion current density were possessed by the alloy, with the maximum intergranular corrosion depth (IGC) being reduced to 38 μm. Microstructure observation indicates that the improvement in hardness uniformity is due to the uniformity of grain size and the improved distribution and size of the η’ phase, which is attributed to the interaction between the pinning and shear effects of precipitates and dislocations during deformation. The enhanced corrosion resistance was attributed to an orderly combination of deformation and aging that increases the grain boundary volume and disrupts the η phase continuity within grain boundaries.