Abstract: 5182 aluminum alloy sheet without intermediate annealing was prepared by a conventional route （melting, homogenization, hot rolling to 3.5 mm depth, cold rolling to 1.0 mm depth, annealing at 500 ℃ for 10 s）, and that with intermediate annealing was prepared by incorporating an extra annealing step in the cold rolling step of the conventional route （cold rolling to 1.5 mm depth, annealing at 300 ℃ for 2 h, cold rolling to 1.0 mm depth）. The effects of intermediate annealing on the microstructure, tensile properties and Lüders band defects of the aluminum alloy sheets were studied comparatively. The results show that the sheets without and with intermediate annealing underwent complete recrystallization, the grains were equiaxed, and second phases of Al₆（FeMn） and Mg₂Si precipitated. Compared with those of the sheet without intermediate annealing, the size of grains and second phases of the sheet with intermediate annealing were relatively large, and the grain size distribution was more dispersed. The sheet without intermediate annealing mainly had cube and R-cube recrystallization textures. The sheet with intermediate annealing not only had recrystallization textures but also had brass textures, S textures and copper textures, whose texture orientation was random. Compared with those of the sheet without intermediate annealing, the tensile strength, yield strength, percentage elongation after fracture and strain hardening index of the sheet with intermediate annealing showed no significant changes, but the plastic strain was relatively large. The yield plateau disappeared of the sheet with intermediate annealing, and no Lüders band defects appeared.