Deformation Enhanced Diffusion in Aluminium Alloys

Deformation introduces defects such as dislocations and excess vacancies that can strongly influence diffusion rates in aluminium alloys. This is of great importance in understanding the effect of deformation on processes such as precipitation hardening, which can be accelerated by orders of magnitude by the defects introduced. In this work, a simple and widely used classical model has been employed to explore the effect of process variables on diffusion enhancement due to deformation-induced excess vacancies and dislocations. It is demonstrated that in aluminium alloys, the strain rates and temperatures used in processing and testing encompass a range of regimes. At low strain rate or high temperature, a steady state becomes established in which the deformation enhancement depends on strain rate but not strain. Conversely, at high strain rate or low temperature, deformation enhancement is insensitive to strain rate but increases with strain. For all conditions, the effect of excess vacancies is much stronger than the direct effect of pipe diffusion along dislocations. The predicted deformation-induced vacancy concentration can exceed that expected after rapid quenching by an order of magnitude, but the lifetime of the deformation-induced vacancies is much shorter. Finally, limitations of the classical model and suggestions for improvement are proposed.