Investigation of the Ultrafine-Grained Structure Formation under Different Strain Rates

Abstract

The present paper deals with a study on formation of specific substructural features in OFHC copper processed by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) considering different strain rate conditions. Since two mechanical tensile testing equipments were being used, strain rate response could be studied in a wide range (both in static and dynamic regimes). Moreover, the copper before tensile testing was subjected to drawing and ECAP, separately, which allows to study the influence of both structural and substructural features (CG vs. UFG structure). Considering the static regime, it was found that UFG materials have advanced properties, showing higher strength and ductility in comparison to their CG counterparts. However, this is valid only to the critical value of the strain rate. In the dynamic regime, mathematical linearized results imply that ultimate tensile strength in samples processed by ECAP increases twice every 10 s−1 rising, however, they lost approximately the same plastic properties than samples after drawing. Differences in the progress of mechanical properties are related to specific structural and substructural features evolved in the material during ECAP processing. Above mentioned features were studied in detail by methods of transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM, SEM).

Keywords

• electron microscopy
• EBSD
• nanostructured materials
• equal channel angular processing
• grain refinement