Bulk Nanomaterials and Powders Consolidation Produced by Cyclic Extrusion Compression

The Cyclic Extrusion – Compression - reciprocating extrusion process (CEC) is one of severe plastic deformation methods (SPD), which allow to produce bulk nanomaterials without changing the initial shape of deformed samples. The results are presented showing that the average grains size and microbands thickness in aluminium alloys decrease below 100 nm. The investigations revealed that the average grains size is about 250 nm and 200 nm in polycrystalline and monocrystalline copper, respectively.The Cyclic Extrusion Compression method is also used to produce bulk materials by powder consolidation. The subgrains/nanograins inside the silver powder particles after the consolidation processes achieved the mean size of about 100 nm. Moreover, it has been found that inside structure observed by TEM, the consolidated powder granules consisted from nanometric twins of about 10 – 20 nm. This silver based powder consolidated by CEC method were extruded by hydrostatic extrusion method. The final product were the wires with a diameter of 3 mm, which were used to electrical contacts production.

Grain Boundary Design of Bulk Nanomaterials for Advanced Properties

Nanostructuring of metals and alloys by severe plastic deformation techniques is an effective way of enhancing their mechanical and functional properties. The features of the nanostructured materials produced by severe plastic deformation (SPD) are stipulated by forming of ultrafine-sized grains as well as by the state of grain boundaries. The concept of grain boundary (GB) design of ultrafine-grained metals and alloys is developed for enhancement of their properties by tailoring grain boundaries of different types (low-angle and high-angle ones, special and random, equilibrium and nonequilibrium) and formation of grain boundary segregations and precipitations by SPD processing. The paper presents experimental data demonstrating the super-strength and “positive” slope of the Hall-Petch relation when passing from micro-to nanostructured state in a number of metallic materials subjected to severe plastic deformation. The nature of the superior strength is associated with new strengthening mechanisms and the difficulty of generation of dislocations from grain boundaries with segregations. This new approach is used for achieving the enhanced strength in several commercial Al and Ti alloys as well as steels subjected to SPD processing.