A Unified Physical Model for Creep and Hot Working of Al-Mg Solid Solution Alloys.

The description of the dependence of steady-state creep rate on applied stress and temperature is almost invariably based on the Norton equation or on derived power-law relationships. In hot working, the Norton equation does not work, and is therefore usually replaced with the Garofalo (sinh) equation. Both of these equations are phenomenological in nature and can be seldom unambiguously related to microstructural parameters, such as dislocation density, although early efforts in this sense led to the introduction of the "natural power law" with exponent 3. In an attempt to overcome this deficiency, a recent model with sound physical basis has been successfully used to describe the creep response of fcc metals, such as copper. The main advantage of this model is that it does not require any data fitting to predict the strain rate dependence on applied stress and temperature, which is a particularly attractive peculiarity when studying the hot workability of metals. Thus, the model, properly modified to take into account solid solution strengthening effects, has been here applied to the study of the creep and hot-working of simple Al-Mg single phase alloys. The model demonstrated an excellent accuracy in describing both creep and hot working regimes, still maintaining its most important feature, that is, it does not require any fitting of the experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]