3D NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON FLOW CHARACTERISTICS OF MULTI-PASS ECAP WITH AA1050

Experiments and numerical simulations were conducted to investigate flow behaviour of the specimen made of commercially pure aluminum alloy (AA1050) during multi-pass equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) for route A up to four passes. Influence of processing conditions on friction and flow behaviour was investigated by measuring load variations, microhardness distributions and microstructure changes depending on the number of passes. It was carefully simulated by employing the finite element technique by tracing the local deformation, determining the load requirement and comparing the local strain with microhardness distributions. Change of the grain size depending on the number of passes was monitored by transmission electron microscopy. The present work clearly showed flow characteristics of the deformed specimen at the central and surface regions due to the effect of the number of passes for the multi-pass ECAP.