Establishing Equal-Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) for sheet metals by using backpressure: manufacturing of high-strength aluminum AA5083 sheets

Severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes offer the possibility of improving the mechanical properties of metallic materials by grain refinement. However, this great potential has so far mostly been applied on a laboratory scale or on small series. Equal-Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) also enables to integrate the advantages in industrial processes with large output—so far, mainly for bars or thick plates. In this paper, we investigate the ECAP process for sheet metal. Preliminary investigations have shown that cracks form on the surface when aluminum AA5083 sheets are processed. To solve this problem, we determined the Johnson–Cook fracture criterion for the material and modeled the process numerically. The simulation was carried out with the superposition of a backpressure and subsequently implemented and validated experimentally. The semi-finished sheet metal products from the ECAP investigation were then mechanically characterized with microhardness measurements and tensile tests. In addition, the microstructure was investigated with Electron Back Scatter Diffraction (EBSD). Even comparatively small amounts of backpressure (10 MPa) already result in a significant suppression of the crack formation in the numerical and experimental investigations. The microhardness measurements indicate a more homogeneous strain distribution for a sufficient level of applied backpressure which enables the processing of crack-free sheets in multiple ECAP passes. As with ECAP of bulk materials, tensile tests on the processed sheets show a reduced elongation to failure (− 73%) but a significantly increased yield strength (+ 157%) compared to the initial condition of the material. Distinct substructures are found in the EBSD measurements and explain this behavior. The findings provide the basis for using ECAP on an application-oriented scale and demonstrate an advanced manufacturing method for the production of high-strength aluminum sheets.