Materials Science Forum Vols. 503-504

Abstract: Equal Channel Angular Extrusion (ECAE) with varying levels of applied backpressure was used to refine the microstructure of commercial automotive aluminium alloy 6016 at room temperature using route BC and a 90° die. Before processing, the alloy was solution heat treated at 560°C for 1 hour to produce an initial average grain size of ~190μm (in the furnace cooled condition) and ~200μm (in the water quenched condition). Two needle-like secondary phase precipitates were observed predominantly at grain boundaries and identified as α-Fe Al12Fe3Si2 and β-Fe Al5FeSi. The ability of Al 6016 to accumulate strain by simple shear was found to be dependent upon both the heat treatment condition and level of applied backpressure. The furnace cooled (FC) condition was found to accumulate higher strains than the cold water quenched (WQ) condition (under the same applied backpressure) with higher levels of backpressure allowing both conditions to accumulate greater equivalent plastic strains. A series of static annealing experiments were performed on as-processed material to investigate the grain stability of the ultrafine grained structure obtained after ECAE. Grain growth was observed to occur at 250°C in the FC condition of Al 6016 after 12 passes of ECAE where the average grain size approached 1μm. The engineering strain to failure in elevated temperature tensile testing was found to be dependent upon the number of passes of ECAE, test temperature, strain rate and level of applied backpressure. Increasing the number of passes and level of applied backpressure during ECAE and decreasing the strain rate during testing was found to produce the greatest tensile ductilities at 200°C (FC condition) and 300°C (WQ condition).

Abstract: Pure copper (99.98%wt) square bars (32x32 mm) were processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) Microstructure evolution was characterized by microscopy. Room temperature mechanical properties were obtained by tensile and micro-hardness tests. With increasing number of ECAP passes and cold rolling reductions, the initial coarse grained structure in the as-received material was transformed gradually into an ultrafine grained microstructure with an average grain size of 0.2~0.3 μm. Subsequent rolling resulted deformation twining in this ultrafine grained microstructure, which gives further strengthening in addition to the strengthening obtained by ECAP. Property anisotropy in three orthogonal directions of samples processed by ECAP was characterized by tensile testing.

Abstract: The effects of the shot peening (SP) condition and the initial hardness of specimens on the formation and thickness of nanocrystalline (NC) layer were investigated. The NC structure is found to be independent of the SP techniques, air blast, impeller and ultrasonic SP. In the SP condition, the increase in the kinetic energy per one shot is effective to increase the thickness of NC layer. It is also found that there is a certain critical initial hardness of specimens to produce the NC structure by SP. The NC structure forms when the specimen hardness is lower than the shot hardness.

Abstract: A model describing the evolution of the misorientation angle between dislocation cells with plastic strain is proposed. The model is applied to the case of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) of copper. In a basic version of the model, the evolution of the average misorientation angle is traced. A way of handling the evolution of the misorientation angle distribution function using a probabilistic description is also outlined.

Abstract: The cross-ARB (C-ARB) process, which adopts cross rolling of the two stacked plates, has been performed up to seven cycles on a commercial purity 1050 aluminum alloy to obtain ultrafine grains with an average grain size of 0.7μm. Microstructural evolution of the C-ARB processed aluminum alloy was examined by a transmission electron microscopy as a function of process cycle number (accumulated plastic strain). Tensile property of the severely deformed Al alloy was also explored. Grain size of grains of the C-ARB processed alloy varied across thickness of the rolled plate. The size of grains at the top and bottom of the rolled plate converged to 0.65μm, while that of grains at the center of the plate increased with the number of ARB cycles. Tensile strength of the CARB processed 1050 Al alloy increased from 100MPa (as-received) to 160MPa. Tensile elongation varied with the number of cycles, but 15% of failure strain was measured from the 6-cycle C-ARB processed specimen. The variation of the elongation with the cycle number coincided exactly with the variation of grain size at the center of the processed plate.

Abstract: During large strain deformation of materials, the width of the initial high angle grain boundaries approaches the order of mean diffusion distances encountered during elevated temperature deformation. Since the evolution of ultrafine grains is attributed to thermally activated processes, the role of interfaces in determining the grain size is significant. In order to investigate into this role, microstructure development in low carbon steel (0.15% C) subjected to large strain deformation was studied with specific reference to the controlling mechanism of ferrite grain size evolution. Plane strain compression tests have been conducted in the temperature range of 773-923K at strain rates of 0.01 s -1 and 1 s-1 and the specimens were deformed to 25% of the original thickness and the Microstructural evolution is studied. Based on the results obtained, diffusion along grain boundaries was found to be the mechanism controlling ferrite grain size in this material processed through large strain deformation.

Abstract: Titanium VT1-0 was processed by four passes of equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) using two routes, BC and C. Pressed samples had a square section with a side length of 8 mm. Mechanical properties at tension (tensile strength, conventional yield strength and elongation) were determined at 9 points across the sample using small-size specimens, 1.5 mm in diameter, cut out along the pressing direction. Heterogeneity in the mechanical properties across the sample was determined based on the value of the variation coefficient. One can observe that heterogeneity in the mechanical properties generally tends to decrease with the number of ECAP passes.

Abstract: Amorphous Al86Ni6Co2Gd6 ribbons produced by melt-spinning processing were consolidated using twist extrusion (TE). Electrical resistance measurements showed that under continuous heating at 5 K/min crystallization begins at 473 K by formation of Al-nanocrystals and ends at 673 K by formation of equilibrium intermetallics. From one to five TE extrusion passes were conducted in several experiments at temperatures 458-573 K and applied pressures ranged between 1150-1700 MPa. The fully dense billets with dimensions 14×23×40 mm3 were produced at extrusion temperatures ≥ 523 K. The maximum microhardness (550 kgf/mm2) was reached for the bulk materials consolidated at 523 K with a nanocomposite structure consisted of Al-nanocrystals with size about 13 nm embedded in amorphous matrix. The billet compacted at 573 K has a fully crystallized structure and lower microhardness (380 kgf/mm2).

Abstract: Usual static recrystallization treatment and a method to provide intense plastic deformation, ARB namely Accumulative Roll-Bonding, have been applied to two beta type titanium alloys, i.e. Ti-29Nb-13Ta-4.6Zr and Ti-15V-3Cr-3Sn-3Al. Microstructural change as well as work-hardening behavior was examined as a function of plastic strain. Both the work-hardening rate and the hardness at the initial as-hot-rolled state were smaller in the Ti-Nb-Ta-Zr alloy than in the Ti-V-Cr-Sn-Al alloy. Recrystallized grains of 14μm in size were obtained by the usual static recrystallization treatment, which was significantly smaller than that of the starting as-hot-rolled plate of 38μm. No significant change other than flattening and elongating of the original grains was found in the optical microscopic scale. It was revealed, however, from a TEM observation combined with selected area diffraction technique that geometric dynamic recrystallization occurred in the Ti-Nb-Ta-Zr alloy deformed at room temperature by a true strain of 5, resulting in an ultra-fine-grained microstructure where the grain size was roughly estimated to be about 100nm.