Grain Refinement of Vanadium by Low Temperature Severe Plastic Deformation

Abstract

Recent advances in the severe plastic deformation technique have shown that effective refinement of the microstructure can be achieved in pure metals as well as in alloys. Among the various methods of severe plastic deformation, equal channel angular pressing has been the subject of numerous research works. Since the grain refining effect of this technique appears to reach a peak at a level of approximately 200 nm further microstructural changes are sought—deformation at a cryogenic temperature being one of the candidate routes. In the present study, we opted to combine equal channel angular pressing and low temperature plastic deformation to refine the microstructure of commercially pure V. The starting microstructure consisted of equiaxed grains with an average size of 100 micrometers. This microstructure was refined to a 200 nm thick lamellar microstructure by 8 passes of equal channel angular pressing at 350°C. The lamellar thickness was further reduced to 140 nm upon subsequent cryogenic rolling, which resulted in room temperature yield strength of 768 MPa. In the specimens, recrystallization annealed at 850°C, the grain size reached 1000 nm or larger, and the yield strength obeyed the Hall-Petch relationship with that grain size. The tensile elongation value, which was low and insensitive to the grain size in the as-deformed state, increased significantly up to 43% with the recrystallization annealing.