Effect of Fe-Content on the Mechanical Properties of Recycled Al Alloys during Hot Compression

It is unavoidable that Fe impurities will be mixed into Al alloys during recycling of automotive aluminum parts, and the Fe content has a significant effect on the mechanical properties of the recycled Al alloys. In this work, hot compression tests of two Fe-containing Al alloys were carried out at elevated temperatures within a wide strain rate range from 0.01 s−1 to 10 s−1. The effect of Fe content on the peak stress of the stress vs. strain curves, strain rate sensitivity and activation energy for dynamic recrystallization are analyzed. Results show that the recycled Al alloy containing 0.5 wt % Fe exhibits higher peak stresses and larger activation energy than the recycled Al alloy containing 0.1 wt % Fe, which results from the fact that there are more dispersed AlMgFeSi and/or AlFeSi precipitates in the recycled Al alloy containing 0.5 wt % Fe as confirmed by SEM observation and energy spectrum analysis. It is also shown that the Fe content has little effect on the strain rate sensitivity of the recycled Al alloys.