Effect of Temperature on Densification and Deformation Behaviour of Pure Aluminium Powders Processed by Equal Channel Angular Densification and Pressing

Abstract In this study, a dense bulk material was produced from pure aluminum powders by the equal channel angular densification (ECAD) and the equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) method. The combination of densification and ECAD/ECAP tests were carried out at temperatures of 50 °C, 100 °C, and 200 °C, a pressing speed of 1 mms −1 , and a pressure in the range of 10–30 metric tons. By using these parameters, for the first time pure aluminum powders were successfully densified into fully bulk materials without additional sintering process. After the ECAD/ECAP tests, the specimens were characterized regarding microstructure, grain size, hardness, and density. The mean grain size was remarkably decreased with an increasing ECAP pass number. With the application of the ECAD/ECAP process, the severe plastic deformation entails that the particles are consolidated into fully dense materials at much lower temperatures and shorter times, as compared to the conventional sintering process. Finally, determining the effective ECAP temperature was very important to control the nano-scaled microstructure, hardness, and density, repectively.