Electroplastic effect on AA1050 plastic flow behavior in H24 tempered and fully annealed conditions.

Electrically-Assisted (EA) technologies are emerging as a new category of forming processes, where the application of the electric field is used to assist the material deformation. The contribution of DC / AC electrical fields generally leads to a decrease of the flow stress and at the same time an increase of the material formability. However, the effects of the electrical current on the material behavior are still debated, since the thermal softening due to the concurrent temperature increase appears to be predominant for the larger ductility showed by the material. The present work aims at investigating the electro-plastic effect in AA1050 aluminum alloys sheets under two different states, namely the H24 tempered and the annealed conditions, by decoupling the electro-plastic and the thermal influence. Smooth specimens were tested along the three different rolling directions, applying different values of DC current in temperature-controlled conditions. For sake of comparison, the same tests were carried out by using an environmental chamber to reproduce the temperature increase due to the DC current.