Prediction of Earing of Cross-Rolled Al Sheets from {h00} Pole Figures

The plastic anisotropy of rolled Al sheets is the result of a crystallographic texture. It leads to the formation of uneven cup heights during deep-drawing, which is called earing. A new, simple and rapid method had been previously developed by the authors to predict earing directly from {h00} pole figures. In the present manuscript, this method is applied to cross-rolling for the first time. 5056 type aluminum sheets were unidirectionally- (conventionally) and cross-rolled from 4 to similar to 1 mm thickness in 6 or 12 passes. Earing was predicted from recalculated {200} pole figures obtained after X-ray diffraction texture measurements. The results were validated by deep-drawing tests. It is shown that the proposed method predicts the type (locations of ears) and magnitude of earing with satisfactory results. However, a different scaling factor must be used to calculate the magnitude of earing for cross-rolling than for unidirectional rolling even if all other parameters (including cold rolling, texture measurements, and deep-drawing) are the same. This is because the cross-rolled sheets exhibit a similar type but weaker earing compared to the unidirectionally rolled samples.