An investigation into the effect of equal channel angular extrusion process on mechanical and microstructural properties of middle layer in copper clad aluminum composite

Equal channel angular extrusion is a promising technique for production of ultra fine-grain materials of few hundred nanometers size. In this research, the grain refinement of aluminium strip is accelerated by sandwiching it between two copper strips and then subjecting the three strips to Equal channel angular extrusion process simultaneously. The loosely packed copper-aluminium-copper laminated billet was passed through Equal channel angular extrusion die up to 8 passes using the Bc route. Then, tensile properties and some microstructural characteristics of the aluminium layer were evaluated. The scanning and transmission electron microscopes, and X-ray diffraction were used to characterize the microstructure. The results show that the yield stress of middle layer (Al) is increased significantly by about four times after application of Equal channel angular extrusion throughout the four consecutive passes and then it is slightly decreased when more Equal channel angular extrusion passes are applied. An ultra fine grain within the range of 500 to 600 nm was obtained in the Al layer by increasing the thickness of the copper layers. lt was observed that the reduction of grain size in the aluminium layer is nearly 55% more than that of a equal channel angular-extruded single layer aluminium billet, i.e. extruding a single aluminium strip or a billet without any clad for the same amount of deformation. This behaviour was attributed to the higher rates of dislocations interaction and cell formation and texture development during the Equal channel angular extrusion of the laminated composite compared to those of a single billet.