The 2195 Al–Li alloy, as one of the representative third-generation Al–Li alloys, has extensive applications in lightweight aerospace structures. In this paper, the anisotropy in mechanical properties and microstructure evolution of 2195 Al–Li alloy sheets were investigated under a strain rate of 0.01, 0.1, 1 s⁻¹ and a temperature of 440 and 500 °C. Experimental results showed that the hot tensile properties of the 2195 Al–Li alloy sheet exhibited a strong dependence on loading directions. The peak stress (PS) and elongation (EL) along the rolling direction (RD) were larger than the transverse direction (TD). For the tests carried out at 440 °C-1 s⁻¹, the PS values of the sheets stretched along the RD and TD are 142.9 MPa and 110.2 MPa, respectively. And, most of the PS anisotropy values are larger than 15%. The anisotropy in EL is less significant than in PS. All the differences are about 10%. Moreover, dimples in the samples stretched along RD were more and deeper than those along TD at 440 °C. The fracture morphology along RD and TD were similar, and both were cleavage fractures at 500 °C. Particularly, the fractions of high angle grain boundaries (HAGBs) along TD were all about 5% larger than those of RD. And, there were more small-sized continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) grains inside the initial grains and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) grains featured with the local bulge of grain boundaries along TD. This was due to the smaller average Schmid factor and the vertical EL trend of the initial grains when the samples were stretched along TD. A model of grain evolution during the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) along RD and TD was proposed based on EBSD results. The Schmid factor and banded structure had a more prominent effect on the hot ductility of the 2195 Al–Li alloy compared with the degree of DRX, thus presenting a higher EL and better hot ductility along RD.

Friction stir welding can realize high-strength aluminum alloy joints. In this study, friction stir welding with cover sheet (CFSW) is proposed to solve the thinning caused by the tool shoulder and reduce the heat-affected zone. The microstructures and mechanical properties of CFWS were also studied. After the cover sheet was added, a reinforcement was formed on the weld surface, which compensated the thinning caused by the friction of the tool shoulder. As the cover absorbed heat from the shoulder, the width of the heat-affected zone of the welded sheet became smaller than the diameter of the shoulder. Without milling the cover sheet, the tensile strength of the 5754 aluminum alloy joint reached 94% of that of the base metal. The fracture position was the heat-affected zone of the forward-side weld joint. After the cover sheet was added, the stress concentration shifted from the thinning area of traditional friction stir welding to the outside of the welding seam.

Preheating is the first but critical step for hot stamping high strength precipitate hardened aluminum alloys. To thoroughly understand the effects of preheating conditions—i.e., preheating rate and heating temperature—on the strength and hot deformation of aluminum alloys, a series of thermal–mechanical tests was performed to determine the post-hardness evolution and hot flow behaviors. Typical microstructures with different preheating conditions were also observed through transmission electron microscopy (TEM), with which a unified model of both hot flow and strength based on key microstructural variables was developed, enabling the successful prediction of macroscopic properties using different preheating strategies. The results have shown that for high strength AA7075 at the T6 condition, the dominant mechanism of precipitate evolution with increasing temperature is the coarsening of precipitates first, followed by dissolution when they exceed a critical temperature. A higher heating rate results in a slower coarsening and a relatively higher strength level. In addition, the flow stress of hot deformation is also higher using a quick heating rate, with more significant softening and reduced ductility.

In sheet metal forming, the material is usually subjected to a complex nonlinear loading process, and the anisotropic hardening behavior of the material must be considered in order to accurately predict the deformation of the sheet. In recent years, the homogeneous anisotropic hardening (HAH) model has been applied in the simulation of sheet metal forming. However, the existing HAH model is established in the second-order stress deviator space, which makes the calculation complicated and costly, especially for a plane stress problem such as sheet metal forming. In an attempt to reduce the computational cost, an HAH model in plane stress state is proposed, and called the HAH-2d model in this paper. In the HAH-2d model, both the stress vector and microstructure vector contain only three in-plane components, so the calculation is significantly simplified. The characteristics of the model under typical nonlinear loading paths are analyzed. Additionally, the feasibility of the model is verified by the stress–strain responses of DP780 and EDDQ steel sheets under different two-step uniaxial tension tests. The results show that the HAH-2d model can reasonably reflect the Bauschinger effect and the permanent softening effect in reverse loading, and the latent hardening effect in cross loading, while the predictive accuracy for cross-loading softening remains to be improved. In the future, the HAH-2d model can be further modified to describe more anisotropic hardening behaviors and applied to numerical simulations.

We propose an experimental method to identify anisotropic coefficients in non-principal axis directions of thin-walled tubes. The method involves extracting specimens from the parent tubes and machining a hole in the axial center. The specimens are then inserted into a tube without a hole. The inner diameter of the specimen is theoretically equal to the outer diameter of the inner tube. The double-layer tube undergoes free bulging under internal pressure in our self-developed experimental equipment, with the hole on the specimen expanding simultaneously. The stress states around the hole are uniaxial, and the hole deformation can reflect the anisotropic plastic flow characteristics of the tube. Furthermore, based on the information obtained from the proposed experimental method, a hybrid numerical–experimental method was used to identify the anisotropic coefficients of tubes. Through FE simulations, the relationships between the thickness, stress, and strain states around the hole, the hole shape, and anisotropic coefficients of non-principal axis directions are revealed, and the factors that affect the hole deformation are analyzed. Finally, the hole bulging experiments and FE simulations of AA6061-O extruded tube were conducted, and modeled with Hill48 and calibrated by uniaxial tensile and hoop tensile tests. Its in-plane anisotropy coefficients in any direction are given for the first time which first increase and then decrease from 0° to 90°, reaching a maximum of 1.13 in 60° and a minimum of 0.69 in 0°. This work can provide the key experimental data for establishing an accurate anisotropic plastic constitutive model of thin-walled tubes.