A constitutive and microstructural study for optimizing the Al2O3/Al composite in hot forming processes
摘要
Hot deformation behavior of the Al2O3/Al composite is critical yet insufficiently understood for applications requiring both strength and thermal stability. This study systematically decouples the coupled effects of strain rate (0.001–1 s−1) and temperature (300–550 °C) through an integration of constitutive modeling and multiscale microstructural analysis. By developing the Arrhenius constitutive equation, an unusually high activation energy (Q = 276.6 kJ/mol), attributed to Al2O3 particle-induced dislocation pinning effects as confirmed by EBSD and TEM, was revealed. It is shown that the optimal processing window for the Al2O3/Al composite occurs at 550 °C with a strain rate of 1 s−1, according to the highest power dissipation coefficient and a high proportion of dynamic recrystallization grains. These findings provide actionable guidelines for manufacturing high-integrity Al2O3/Al components, with direct relevance to the application of next-generation lightweight components in the field of nuclear and aerospace industries.