An Investigation into Optimized Ti-6Al-4V Titanium Alloy Equal Channel Angular Extrusion Process

Abstract

The shear plastic deformation behavior of a material during equal channel angular (ECA) extrusion is governed primarily by the die geometry, the material properties, and the process conditions. This paper employs the rigid-plastic finite element (FE) to investigate the plastic deformation behavior of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy during ECA extrusion processing. Under various ECA extrusion conditions, the FE analysis investigates the damage factor distribution, the effective stress-strain distribution, and the die load at the exit. The relative influences of the internal angle between the two die channels, the friction factors, the titanium alloy temperature and the strain rate of billet are systematically examined. In addition, the Taguchi method is employed to optimize the ECA process parameters. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of this robust design methodology in optimizing the ECA processing of the current Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy.