Deformation behavior of an ultrafine-grained Al–Mg alloy produced by equal-channel angular pressing Original Research Article

Presented here is the deformation behavior of Al–1.5 wt% Mg alloy severely plastically deformed to equivalent pre-strains of 8 and 13 using the equal-channel angular pressing technique. The average subgrain size after severe plastic deformation was 280 and 230 nm respectively. Strain rate change and stress relaxation tests in the range 10−4–10−2 s−1 and 298–523 K were performed. The strain rate sensitivity of ultrafine-grained (UFG) Al–1.5Mg was enhanced and the peak strain rate sensitivity shifted to lower temperatures as compared with the coarse-grained (CG) alloy. The increased strain rate sensitivity is a direct consequence of the reduced activation volume. The increase in pre-strain from 8 to 13 has a small effect on both the microstructural refinement and the subsequent deformation behavior. With increasing temperature the UFG material softens compared with the CG material. This demarcation has been clearly shown on a strain rate by temperature plot. Refinement of grain results in an enhanced solute drag regime, primarily due to the decreased activation energy of diffusion.