Age forming is an advanced manufacture technology for forming large aluminum panels. Temperature, initial stress level and pre-strains have a great effect on the formability and performance. The stress relaxation aging behavior of AA7150-T7751 under different temperatures, initial stress levels and pre-strains was studied through stress relaxation tests, tensile tests and TEM observations. The results show that the formability can be improved with the increase of temperature, initial stress levels and pre-strains. Deformation mechanisms during stress relaxation of the material were analyzed on the basis of creep stress exponent and apparent activation energy. The aging precipitates of the studied alloy were not sensitive to the age forming conditions, but drastically coarsened at over aging temperature, which decreased the mechanical properties. In addition, the relationship between stress relaxation behavior and aging strengthening is discussed. Based on the dislocation theory and the modified Arrhenius equation, a stress relaxation constitutive equation considering the initial mobile dislocation density and temperature dependent activation energy was established. This model can predict very well the stress relaxation behavior under various temperature, stress level and pre-strain conditions, with an average error of 2%.

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