Observation of microscopic plastic deformation of polycrystalline aluminum during uniaxial tension by confocal laser-scanning microscope

Microscopic plastic deformation behavior of aluminum sheet during uniaxial tension is experimentally investigated by a confocal laser-scanning microscope. The surface roughening is closely related to the inhomogeneity of polycrystalline metals, that is, to the inhomogeneous plastic deformation of respective grains. Image measuring method of rigid rotation of grain is proposed. It is shown that the averaged grain rotation on the surface plane is much less than the averaged grain rotation out of the surface plane. The averaged grain rotation, the grain-area strain and the mean size strain and the standard deviations of these parameters increase statistically in proportion to the applied strain. The grain rotation in the material is less than that on the surface, thus it is considered that deformation inhomogeneity of grains in the material is less than that of grains on the surface of the material. This fact may indicate that the surface roughness is mainly affected by inhomogeneous deformation of the surface layer. Discussions are made on the grain rotation, the inhomogeneous deformation of the grains and the free surface roughening mechanism.