• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.222-226
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• 2018

Severe plastic deformation (SPD) is a promising method for drastically enhancing the mechanical properties of the materials by grain refinement of metallic materials. However, inhomogeneous deformation during the SPD process results in the inhomogeneous microstructure of the SPD-processed material. We manufactured cylindrical copper specimens of 42 mm in diameter with ultrafine grains (UFG) using an equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) to figure out the relationship between homogeneous microstructure and the number of the processing passes. Two specimens, which are ECAP-processed 4 times (4pass) and 6 times (6pass) each with Route Bc, are prepared for comparison of mechanical properties and microstructure. The results show that the mechanical properties of the two specimens (4pass and 6pass) are similar. Moreover, both the specimens show highly enhanced mechanical properties. The 4pass specimen, however, shows inhomogeneity in hardness distribution, while the 6pass specimen shows a homogeneous distribution. Microstructure analysis reveals that the 4pass specimen has an inhomogeneous microstructure with incompletely refined grain structure. This inhomogeneity of the 4pass specimen could be explained by the circumferential rotation during ECAP process.