Effect of Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) on the Microstructure and Hardness of Aluminum 7075 Alloy

In manufacturing process, components of required shape and size are produced through plastic deformation or by deforming the product itself through rolling, extrusion, drawing etc. Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) is a forming procedure to extrude material by use of specially designed channel dies with negligible change in geometry and make an ultrafine grained material by imposing Severe Plastic Deformation (SPD). A shear strain is introduced when the billet passes through the point of intersection of the two parts of the channel. The plastic deformation behavior during extrusion is governed mainly by die geometry (channel sizes, channel angle). The pressing may be repeated several times to high strain, and hence refining grain size. The material sample used as billet is Aluminum 7075 alloy and the dimensions used is 12mmX120mm. The extrusion is carried out at different temperatures.