Experimental study of the Portevin-Le Chatelier effect in AA 5754 sheets: Influence of the different rolling routes

This paper deals with the experimental study of the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect in the rolling of AA 5754 ingots. Three different rolling cycles were investigated in order to minimize or avoid the occurrence of the PLC effect during the rolling process. A full experimental campaign including microstructural observations, tensile tests and fractographic observations was carried out on the rolled sheets in order better understand the phenomena occurring during the rolling process. It was found that is not possible to completely avoid the occurrence of the PLC effect, but by increasing the grain size through an heat treatment between two rolling passes and by adopting an higher thickness reduction for each rolling pass it is possible to reduce the occurrence of the PLC phenomenon. Moreover it was observed that the PLC effect happens only along the rolling direction.