Percolating porosity in ultrafine grained copper processed by High Pressure Torsion

Abstract

Defect structures in copper of different purity (nominally 99.99 and 99.999 wt. %) deformed via High Pressure Torsion (HPT) with varying processing parameters are investigated utilizing the radiotracer diffusion technique. While the degree of deformation is kept constant, the effects of applied quasi-hydrostatic pressure, processing temperature, post-deformation annealing treatments, and of the impurity concentration on the deformed samples are analyzed in terms of the formation of interconnected internal porosity. Furthermore, the anisotropy of the developing porosity network is examined. The porosity channels occurred to be interconnected along the direction parallel to the surface normal with a volume fraction of the order of a few ppm while no long-range penetration along the internal porosity could be detected when measured along the azimuthal or radial directions of a HPT processed sample.