A new approach for achieving excellent strain homogeneity in tubular channel angular pressing (TCAP) process

Tubular channel angular pressing (TCAP) is a recently invented novel severe plastic deformation technique for producing UFG tubes. Plastic deformation analysis using the finite element method (FEM) was carried out to investigate the effects of trapezoidal channel geometry on strain inhomogeneity index (SII), strain level and required load compared to previously used channel geometries. The results showed that SII is decreased to 0.003 in the case of trapezoidal channel while they are 0.13 and 0.24 in the cases of semicircular and triangular channel types, respectively. It means that excellent strain homogeneity is achieved in TCAP processing using trapezoidal channel geometry. The required load for the trapezoidal channel was 41% lower than that for the triangular channel but it is almost the same for semicircular channel. From the point of view of better strain homogeneity and needing lower process load, TCAP processing using trapezoidal channel is an excellent technique for producing UFG tubes.