Regularities of Microstructure Evolution in a Cu-Cr-Zr Alloy during Severe Plastic Deformation
Anna Bodyakova, M. Yu. Tkachev, G. I. Raab, Rustam Kaibyshev, Andrey Belyakov
Abstract
The effect of severe plastic deformation by the conforming process of equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE-Conform) followed by cold rolling on the microstructures developed in a Cu-0.1Cr-0.1Zr alloy was investigated. Following the ECAE-Conform of 1 to 8 passes (corresponding strains were 0.8 to 6.4) cold rolling to a total strain of 4 was accompanied by substantial grain refinement and strengthening. An average grain size tended to approach 160 nm with an increase in the rolling reduction. An increase in the ECAE-Conform strain promoted the grain refinement during subsequent cold rolling. The fraction of the ultrafine grains with a size of 160 nm after cold rolling to a strain of 4 increased from 0.12 to 0.52 as the number of ECAE-Conform passes increased from 1 to 8. Correspondingly, the yield strength increased above 550 MPa. The strengthening could be expressed by a Hall–Petch type relationship with a grain size strengthening factor of 0.11 MPa m0.5.