An investigation into the work hardening behavior of an aluminum alloy 2090-T81 Al-3.05Cu-2.16Li-0.12Zr at various test temperatures, heat treatment conditions and microstructures was conducted. One microstructure consisted of unrecrystallized, highly textured grains, and the other microstructure was composed of recrystallized grains. Microstructural effects on work hardening were divided into two levels of contribution: the grain structure level, which consisted of the grain size and shape, subgrains and texture, and the microconsistent level, which included the precipitates and solutes. Two heat treatments were studied: the as-received, peak-aged condition, and the solution heat treated condition where the as-received plate was resolutionized. Observations of the deformed surface of both as-received grain structures at various prestrains indicated that there was no correlation between an increase in slip homogeneity and an increase in work hardening. The increase in out-of-plane grain rotation at lower temperatures was not primarily responsible for the increase in work hardening. In addition, the fully plastic deformation microstructure for the unrecrystallized microstructure appeared very inhomogeneous as the grains deformed in bands; there were also bands of grains that had very little to no deformation. From the work hardening plots it was found that an unrecrystallized, (110)<112> textured grain structure with a homogeneous distribution of subgrains produced the highest rate of work hardening between 300 K and 77 K. When the microconstituents are added to both grain structures, both the work hardening rate in the elastic-plastic and fully plastic regimes and the level of work hardening at which the elastic-plastic to fully plastic transition occurred were affected.
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