Application of Separated Die Design to Production of Ecap Dies

Abstract

Metal forming processes with principally shear stresses that very high plastic strains are obtained in one pass are defined as severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes. Strain values can additionally be increased with additional passes throughout the process. Equal channel angular processing (ECAP) is the most applied method among the SPD processes due to relative ease of die manufacturing. On the other hand, die failures like corner cracking are frequently observed due to high notch effect and therefore use of the dies is limited. In the presenting study multi element die design (separated die design) approach was applied to production of ECAP dies in order to eliminate die failures and 5083 Aluminum alloy specimen were deformed with several passes. Although some additional development for die arrangement and fixation are needed, corner cracking was never observed and dies could be used safely.