Development of roping in an aluminum automotive alloy AA6111

The roping behavior of an automotive sheet alloy AA6111 was investigated for two processing schedules that led to the production of: (1) roping and (2) non-roping materials. In contrast to the data available in the literature, this study shows that both ridges and valleys on the upper and lower surfaces are irregularly distributed in the rolling direction (RD) and that ribbed profiles and corrugations are rare. The electron back scattering diffraction (EBSD) experiments demonstrated that banded structures of Goss are more evident throughout the specimen thickness than similar bands of Cube texture. The volume texture of the hotband comprised of the strong brass-copper-S fiber, while exclusively Cube texture was pre sent in the non-roping material. In addition to the Cube, the Goss, G1, S and [100]//RD fiber components were produced in specimens associated with roping. The present study shows that the spatial distribution of the Goss component is responsible for the roping behavior in aluminum alloy AA6111. (C) 2000 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.