Homogeneity of Grain Refinement of Aluminum Alloy with Compressive Torsion Processing

Compressive torsion combined loading that uses relatively low compressive pressure has a great advantage of microstructure refinement of cylindrical metal blocks without changing their shape while processing. In the present work, effects of processing temperature and rotation times on homogeneity of the refined microstructure were investigated for Al-5%Mg alloy. Although lower processing temperature was effective to obtain fine grains, it was difficult to obtain homogeneous refinement at lower temperature. Higher processing temperature was favorable to obtain homogeneous microstructure, for instance, in the cylindrical specimen of phi 25x10 mm the homogeneous refinement could be obtained at higher temperatures than 373K. Increasing rotation times was also effective to obtain homogeneous refined microstructure for thicker specimens.