Evolution of Strain in Multipass Hybrid Equal Channel Angular Pressing Using 3D Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

Severe Plastic Deformation (SPD) is well known process for producing nanostructured material from coarse material. Present paper is an effort to integrate the two well known SPD techniques Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) and Twist Extrusion (TE) to develop a new Hybrid ECAP (HECAP) technique that can produce nanostructured material more economically. In this technique, the specimen is subjected to both ECAP and TE in the same die setup. Finite Element (FE) modeling of metal forming processes has become an important tool for designing feasible production processes, because of its unique capability to describe the complex geometry and boundary conditions. FE Modeling of the above hybrid process is attempted in FORGE. The simulation results clearly depict the change in equivalent strain in the entire specimen on account of this process upto four passes. A comparison is made between FE results of simple ECAP and HECAP upto four passes. The study indicated that equivalent strain is much higher in case of HECAP in comparison to ECAP for same friction conditions. Also, the study is extended to analyse the effect of friction, channel angle and forging force on equivalent strain using current FE model. HECAP opens new possibilities for improving equivalent strain in same number of passes as compared to ECAP. This study is expected to contribute in forming UFG materials that are useful for automobile and aerospace industries.