Blind study of the effect of processing history on the constitutive behaviour of alloy AZ31B

The discipline of materials science is founded upon the structure-property paradigm, and yet it is often held that the full processing history must be known in order to predict material properties. The latter is in conflict with the fundamental premise. The present study probes these philosophical issues within the context of a blind study of AZ31B sheet tensile properties. Four sheets were processed by different vendors and by different approaches, including strip casting and more conventional direct chill ingot casting followed by hot rolling. The experimentalists do not know which sheets were subjected to a given processing history. Property distinctions between the sheets, such as flow strengths, anisotropies, and propensities for dynamic recrystallization and cavitation, are explained in terms of observable structural quantities: grain size and shape, texture, and particle distributions. The results provide sheet producers with microstructure guidelines to augment current property targets.