Papers by Keyword: Grain Refinement

Abstract: This paper reviews the manufacturing of magnesium-based alloys prepared by powder metallurgy (PM) technique and analysis of the effects of PM parameter on the developed microstructure, texture and mechanical properties. Powder metallurgy (PM) technique has been considered to produce magnesium product with consideration of less complex, finer grain and improved mechanical properties. Selection of PM route especially sintering to full densification determines a good diffusion path of alloy for interparticle bonding. This paper discusses the preparation and process parameter of each process in powder metallurgy routes, and the evolved microstructure including the crystallography texture and mechanical properties of the magnesium-based alloy product.

Abstract: Thermal analysis is widely used as a prediction tool for the quality of Al alloys before casting. In the present work, the effects of different grain refiners on the characteristic temperatures and on the grain size of α-Al phase were studied by thermal analysis and metallographic investigations. The response of an AlSiMg alloy towards grain refiners, added in form of rods and tabs, was investigated. In foundry practice, the fading phenomenon of grain refiners is well-known but not completely understood. For these reasons, the fading effect of each refiner at 60 minutes and 120 minutes holding times was also studied. Cooling curves and their derivatives were obtained during solidification of the alloys in a metallic crucible. Experimental data indicated the increase of the temperature associated with the nucleation of α-Al dendrites for the grain-refined alloys in comparison to the untreated ones. Simultaneously, a decrease in primary Al growth temperature, that led to the disappearance of the minimum temperature, were observed. Microstructural features revealed that an increase of 6 ÷ 7 °C of the nucleation temperature, compared to the not refined alloy, corresponds to a significant decrease in average grain size.

Abstract: The influence of roughing strain on the extent of austenite recrystallisation in plain carbon steel and Nb-Ti-V microalloyed steel was investigated. Reheating and roughing simulations were conducted on a deformation dilatometer using industrial heating, soaking times, strain and strain rates. The roughing schedules comprised of varying the pass strain magnitude within a typical roughing temperature range. The double stroke method was used to determine the austenite softening fraction. The austenite grain size, prior to and after rolling, was measured on quenched specimens. Grain refinement was achieved in both steels after all rolling schedules. An applied pass strain of 0.15 was sufficient to completely soften the austenite after the first pass and produced the finest recrystallised grain size. This was attributed to sufficient nucleation sites and driving force for recrystallisation compared to lower strains. Partial recrystallisation occurred after the first pass due to the relatively coarse initial grain size. The steel chemistry played an insignificant role in controlling the recrystallisation kinetics at high roughing temperatures. The through-thickness strain distribution calculated from FEM simulations showed that, for a given applied strain, a similar magnitude of deformation is achieved at the centre of a hot-rolled plate.

Abstract: Recent Al7075 severe friction stir processing (FSP) data gave new insights regarding the relationship among processing, microstructure and high temperature behaviour. Grain boundary sliding, GBS, usually operates with fine, equiaxed and highly misoriented grains although, so far, the variable misorientation is missing from the constitutive equation. A collection of very fine microstructures comprising various grain size and misorientation values is employed to evidence the relative importance of grain size vs misorientation in the superplastic behaviour of the processed alloy. This relationship is included into a new GBS constitutive equation incorporating the average misorientation as a variable.

Abstract: Nonlinear Twist Extrusion (NTE) is a new severe plastic developed (SPD) method for producing grain refinement by extruding and twisting bulk materials through the channel designed for more effective straining compared with the so-called twist extrusion (TE). In this experiment pure magnesium was pressed using NTE for up to 4 passes. The pressing was conducted under two different temperatures, the first pass was conducted in 523K followed by pressing from 2 to 4 passes at 473K pressing temperature. The microstructure of the material is observed with increasing number of passes using optical microscopy (OM), laser microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD). Grain size decreased with increasing passes and become finer than those obtained by other SPD processing. If compared by the same equivalent plastic strain, and it suggests that NTE is a promising approach in strengthening bulk material. The grain size of the as-received material reduced from 97μm down to 3μm after 4 passes. Moreover, the hardness of material also increasing up to 41Hv for the first pass and constantly increased with the increasing number of pressing. This result shows that NTE is one of the promising methods in severe plastic deformation.

Abstract: This work aims at designing and developing low carbon steel alloys to meet the high tensile strength, high ductility and high impact toughness properties. The effect of solid solution mechanism, precipitation hardening, as well as grain refinement were developed with different Manganese content (0.78-2.36wt%) combined with Vanadium(0.008-0.1wt%) and Titanium (0.002-0.072wt%) microalloying additions. The controlled thermo-mechanical treatments and chemical compositions play a big role in developing the microstructure and the corresponding mechanical properties. Therefore, the studied chemical compositions were treated thermo-mechanically by two different ways of changing start and finish forging temperatures with subsequent air cooling. The first way by start forging from 1050 to 830oC and the second from 950 to730oC. The second way of forging process developed finer grain sizes and higher ultimate tensile strengths for all the studied steel alloys. In spite of finer grain sizes, the impact toughness value was lower in the second regime due to detrimental influence of precipitation strengthening in the ferrite. A combination of 544 MPa yield strength, 615 MPa ultimate tensile strength, 20% elongation and 138 Joule impact toughness has been attained.

Abstract: The Simple Cyclic extrusion compression (SCEC) has been developed for producing Al-1%Cu alloys with fine microstructures and superior properties. SCEC method was applied for only two-passess.It was found that the grain structure was significantly reduced from 1500 μm to 100 μm after two passes of cyclic extrusion. The ultimate tensile strength and elongation to failure of as-cast alloy were 110 MPa and 12 %, respectively. However, the corresponding mechanical properties of the two pass CEC deformed alloy are 275 MPa and 35%, respectively. These findings ensure that a significant improvement in the grain structure has been achieved. In addition, cyclic extrusion deformation increased the surface hardness of the alloy by 50 % after two passes.

Abstract: The microstructure evolution during the annealing treatment of a recycled copper after cold rolling to total strain of 2.6 was investigated. The cold deformation resulted in the elongation of initial grains along rolling direction and the strain-induced formation of subboundaries. Annealing recovery occurred in the temperature range 100-250 °C. The recrystallized microstructures were observed after annealing at 300-400 °C. The hardness of partially recrystallized copper samples was interpreted in terms of dislocation strengthening. The recrystallization kinetics was estimated according to a Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov equation using different methods for recrystallized fraction determination, i.e., the fractional softening, the grain orientation spread, and the Kernel average misorientation.

Abstract: We study the effect of the grain refinement on the elemental composition and nanohardness of the surface layers in AISI 316L austenitic steel processed by ion-plasma hardening. Ion-plasma hardening of the samples with (1) grain-subgrain (with high dislocation density) and (2) coarse-grained structures causes a surface hardening and formation of the composite layers with a thickness of about 20 μm. The nanohardness and depth profiles of elemental concentration of nitrogen, carbon and oxygen in the ion-plasma hardened layers depends on pretreatment regime of the steel specimens. Cold rolling causes an increase in the grain and subgrain boundaries fraction and dislocation density in steel specimens, provides more intensive accumulation of interstitial atoms in thin surface 5 μm-layer, leads to additional surface hardening and suppress carbon diffusion into depth of the specimens as compared with coarse-grained structure.

Abstract: In this study, Al-7Si-4Zn-3Cu alloy was processed by multi-directional forging (MDF) at 3, 6 and pass corresponding one, two and three cycle, respectively. The structural and mechanical properties of the alloys were investigated at as-cast, homogenised and MDF states. The MDF resulted in a severely deformed and refined microstructure with eliminated casting defects like micro-porosity and formation of nearly homogeneous distributed finer silicon particles. The tensile (UTS) and yield (YS) of the alloy increased up to two cycle, above which they showed a decrease, while the percent elongation increased continuously as the cycle number increased. The comprehensive strength and micro and macro hardness of the alloy decreased with increasing MDF cycles. The results were evaluated according to microstructural changes depending on MDF cycles.