Numerical simulation and experimental investigation of pure copper deformation behavior for equal channel angular pressing/extrusion process

The mechanism of ECAP process for pure copper materials is studied in this paper by using finite element (FE) simulation and the experimental method. The optimal die geometrical conditions and proper process parameters are obtained by finite element simulations. The obtained research results can provide powerful guidelines for further theoretical analysis and experimental studies on ECAP process. In addition, in order to obtain bulk UFG metal materials at room temperature, and realize extrusion process consecutively and obtain an enough large accumulated effective strain and an enough refined grain size in the workpiece. On the basis of the simulations, the cold ECAP experiments are carried out by the optimized design of the channel die. The geometries of finally pressed workpieces and the microstructure of the processed samples are in good agreement with finite element analysis results. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.