An experimental study on the response of equal channel angular pressed aluminium subjected to cold rolling

Abstract

The present paper aims to identify a sequence of bulk-deformation processes able to produce sufficient quantities of ultra fine grained volume. Samples of aluminium Al 1100 alloy (98.41% Al) are subjected to repetitive equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) at room temperature, repeated up to eight passes. Severely plastic deformed specimens are cold rolled in thin strips which are subjected to structural characterization, calorimetric evaluation and mechanical testing with the aim of monitoring microstructural evolution. The X-ray diffraction studies and differential scanning calorimetry tests reveal the influence of cold rolling on ECAP’d samples, while tensile testing reveal marked strength increases with the number of rolling passes. Finally, an alternative technology is introduced which is easy to implement in metallurgical industry in order to provide large amounts of nanostructured strips.