• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2008

Mg and Mg alloys are promising materials for light weight high strength applications. In this paper, grain refinement of pure Mg using severe plastic deformation was tried to enhance the mechanical properties of the hard-to-deform metallic material. The microstructure and the mechanical properties of Mg processed by equal channel angular pressing(ECAP) at various processing temperatures were investigated experimentally. ECAP with channel angle of $90^{\circ}$ and corner angle of $0^{\circ}$ was successful at $300^{\circ}C$ without fracture of the samples during the processing. The hardness of the ECAP processed Mg decreased with increasing ECAP processing temperature. The effect of temperature on the hardness and microstructure of the ECAP processed Mg were explained by the dislocation glide in the basal plane and non-basal slip systems and by the dynamic recrystallization and recovery.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1751-1758
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• 2001

Among severe plastic deformation processes, ECAP has drawn much attention due to its advantages including ultra-fine grain size material production. In this paper, ECAP process with pure -Zirconium is investigated due to its applicability to nuclear reactors. The finite element method is employed to investigate the deformation behavior of materials during ECAP process. In particular, effects of process parameters such as die deformation and channel angles on the material behaviors have been investigated. Experimental studies have also been performed to verify the numerical results.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.14 no.1 s.60
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• pp.26-31
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• 2007

Manufacturing bulk nanostructured materials with least grain growth from initial powders is challenging because of the bottle neck of bottom-up methods using the conventional powder metallurgy of compaction and sintering. In this study, bottom-up type powder metallurgy processing and top-down type SPD (Severe Plastic Deformation) approaches were combined in order to achieve both real density and grain refinement of metallic powders. ECAP (Equal Channel Angular Pressing), one of the most promising processes in SPD, was used for the powder consolidation method. For understanding the ECAP process, investigating the powder density as well as internal stress, strain distribution is crucial. We investigated the consolidation and plastic deformation of the metallic powders during ECAP using the finite element simulations. Almost independent behavior of powder densification in the entry channel and shear deformation in the main deformation zone was found by the finite element method. Effects of processing parameters on densification and density distributions were investigated.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2002

Microstructural and mechanical characteristics of P/M 6061 Al alloy subjected to equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) were investigated. The P/M 6061 Al alloy had an intial grain size of approximately $20\mutextrm{m}$. An equiaxed ultra-fine grained structure with the mean grain size of $~50 \mutextrm{m}$ was obtained by four repetitive ECAP at 473 K. The microhardness of P/M 6061 Al alloy was drastically increased from about 40 Hv to 80 Hv by two repetitive ECAP at 373 K. However, the microhardness decreased with increasing ECAP temperature. The tensile stength of as-hot-pressed P/M 6061 Al alloy before ECAP was 95 MPa, whereas it increased to both 248 MPa after two repetitive ECAP at 373 K and 130 MPa after four repetitive ECAP at 473 K. The tensile properties of the ECAPed sample were compared with those of commercial cast 6061-O and 6061-T4 Al alloys.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.187-193
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• 2002

Much research efforts have been made on the equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) which produces ultra-fine grains. Among many process parameters such as channel angles, frictions, die deformations and materials employed, the effects of material properties on the deformation behavior have been investigated. The finite element method has been used to investigate this issue.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2004

In this paper processing and mechanical properties of Al-20 wt％ Si alloy was studied. A bulk form of Al-20Si alloy was prepared by gas atomizing powders having the powder size of 106-145 ${\mu}m$ and powder extrusion. The powder extrudate was subsequently equal channel angular pressed up to 8 passes in order to refine grain and Si particle. The microstructure of the gas atomized powders, powder extrudates and equal channel angular pressed samples were investigated using a scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. The mechanical properties of the bulk sample were measured by compressive tests and a micro Victors hardness test. Equal channel angular pressing was found to be effective in matrix grain and Si particle refinement, which enhanced the strength and hardness of the Al-2OSi alloy without deteriorating ductility in the range of experimental strain of 30％.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.88-88
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• 2002

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2002

The 6061 Al alloy based composites reinforced with 10 vol% SiC whiskers were prepared by powder metallurgy with the powders having the different sizes, i.e. < $30{\mu}m$ and > $30{\mu}m$ The composites were subjected to equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) at various conditions and the microstructural changes during ECAP were examined In the composites SiC whiskers were clustered and randomly aligned. The clusters were relatively well distributed in the composite with the smaller initial powder size. After ECAP, the clusters were aligned parallel to flow direction and became smaller. In addition, the shape of clusters was changed from irregular to round. The microstructure of the ECAPed samples were compared with those of the conventionally hot-extruded composites. The uniform microstructure and enhanced microhardness could be obtained by using the powders having the smaller size, decreasing ECAP temperature and repeating ECAP.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.448-452
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• 2009

Superplastic deformation behavior and texture evolution after equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) of Zn-0.3Wt%Al alloy were investigated in this study. ECAP was conducted at temperatures from $60^{\circ}C$ to $160^{\circ}C$ on the plate type specimens of 5 mm thickness and 20 mm width. The specimens obtained by ECAP showed typical texture with basal poles tilted away from the ND toward ED, which is called shear texture. Tensile tests were carried out at $100^{\circ}C$ for ECAPed specimens under the strain rate of 0.0002/s. After ECAP of the Zn-0.3Wt%Al alloy, elongation was dramatically increased up to 500% at $100^{\circ}C$. The effect of ECAP on the anisotropy in the superplastic deformation behavior was negligible.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.13 no.6 s.59
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• pp.415-420
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• 2006

Nanostructured metallic materials are synthesized by bottom-up processing which starts with powders for assembling bulk materials or top-down processing starting with a bulk solid. A representative bottom-up and top-down paths for bulk nanostructured/ultrafine grained metallic materials are powder consolidation and severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods, respectively. In this study, the bottom-up powder and top-down SPD approaches were combined in order to achieve both full density and grain refinement without grain growth, which were considered as a bottle neck of the bottom-up method using conventional powder metallurgy of compaction and sintering. For the powder consolidation, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP), one of the most promising method in SPD, was used. The ECAP processing associated with stress developments was investigated. ECAP for powder consolidation were numerically analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) in conjunction with pressure and shear stress.