Improvement of Mechanical Properties of Semi-Solid Alloys by ECAP Processing

Recently, semi-solid processing is paid to attention in the field of the light alloys. By this method, it is improved ductility and fatigue strength. Although, because of those mechanical properties of the elongation and toughness is not excellent, the range that can be the application to parts is limited. On the other hand, it is reported that grain refinements cause improvement of ductility and appearance of super plasticity. Then, Equal-Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) method is reported to be effective to the sample making of a bulk and ultra fine grain in various alloys in recent years. In this study, it tried to improve ductility and durability due to making ultra fine grain in AC4CH alloys by the ECAP method, and the influence of ECAP processing on the mechanical property of AC4CH was investigated. As the result, the ductility of AC4CH has improved by ECAP processing. However, the tensile strength of AC4CH declined along with the increase in the number of passes. So, for the purpose of additional improvement of tensile strength, ECAP-Back Pressure (ECAP-BP) method that was reported to be more effective for grain refinements than ECAP method was applied to semi-solid AC4CH and compared with ECAP method. As the result, the tensile strength of AC4CH was maintained by use of ECAP-BP. Moreover, both ductility and toughness of that have been also improved.