Potential of High Compressive Ductility of Ultrafine Grained Copper Fabricated by Severe Plastic Deformation

Severe plastic deformation (SPD) can fabricate high-strength materials by forming an ultrafine grained (UFG) microstructure. Low elongation to failure of UFG materials in tensile tests, which has often been regarded as a measure of ductility of materials, has been attributed to low strain hardening of UFG structures where dislocation slip and its accumulation is very limited. In the present work, it is shown that the compressive extensibility of UFG materials can be comparable or potentially superior to that of annealed materials by using a parallel round-bar compression (PRBC) test which was designed for imposing an appropriate stress state preferable for high ductility using the shear mode. The high compressive extensibility of UFG materials can be a result of high accommodation of local strain incompatibility at non-equilibrium grain boundaries and a grain boundary-mediated deformation mechanism, which result in high damage tolerance against void formation and growth. Low strain rate sensitivity indicated that the superplastic viscous nature of deformation is not involved in the high compressive ductility of UFG materials using SPD.