Equal channel angular pressing of wire-formed Al6063 by PU rubber-assisted procedure

Abstract

Expanding suitable severe plastic deformation processes seems essential to design lightweight wire-formed materials for emerging demands. In this regard, 6063 aluminum alloy in the form of wire was processed successfully by polyurethane rubber assisted-equal channel angular pressing up to 16 passes by route B-C. It was found that significant improvement of hardness and strength is achieved at the initial passes due to the increment of material's dislocations density which leads to the crystallite size decrease and lattice microstrain increase. Also, subsequent passes improve the mechanical properties with a gentle rate due to the saturation of dislocation strengthening. The fractography analysis indicated that the ductile fracture mode of the annealed aluminum decreases by imposing the ECAP process. It is related to the formation of cleavage and rive patterns and the reduction in the number and size of the dimples compared to the initial condition. Eventually, X-ray diffraction findings showed that by adding pass numbers, the isotropy degree of the aluminum sample enhances because of the lowest diffraction scattering.