HOT PLANE-STRAIN COMPRESSION TESTING OF ALUMINUM-ALLOYS

Plane strain compression is a versatile laboratory testing method for simulating industrial hot working operations such as plate and strip r olling. The deformation can be closely controlled to the required cond itions of temperature and strain rate, and high strains can be achieve d without instability. However, for accurate determination of flow str ess, care must be taken with experimental procedure and the interpreta tion of the measured force-displacement data. This paper reports the r esults of work carried out in three laboratories on samples of the sam e cast of Al-1% Mn alloy. In particular, the effects of spread and fri ction are analyzed as a function of initial specimen geometry. When co nsistent procedures are used it is shown that excellent reproducibilit y of flow stress data is obtained between laboratories. In deriving co nstitutive relationships, the importance of considering the effects of lubricant films, of deformational heating, and of heat transfer are c learly demonstrated.