Mechanical Properties and Spring -Back Investigation in Creep Age Forming Process of 7075 Al Alloy

Creep age forming (CAF) process is a novel metal forming method with major benefits including improved mechanical properties and cost reduction for aviation industry applications. CAF happens due to creep phenomenon and stress-release during the artificial aging of heat-treatable  aluminum alloys. In this work, the creep age forming of 7075 Aluminum alloy at 120, 150 and 180 °C for 6, 24 and 48 h was done; tensile and hardness tests were used to characterize the samples. Results on spring-back revealed that it was influenced by time and temperature;  by increasing the time and temperature, it was reduced from 54.1 to 39.51. Mechanical property evaluation also showed that by increasing the time, the strength and hardness could be enhanced due to microstructural evolution and precipitation during the CAF process. According to the mechanical and CAF results, two samples were selected as the optimum ones and their work hardening behavior and fracture surfaces were investigated