Mechanical Properties and Microstructure Development of Ultrafine-grained Cu Processed by ECAP

Technical purity Cu (99.95 wt%) polycrystals have been processed at room temperature by equal channel angular pressing. The results of mechanical tests and the microstructure characterization by various experimental techniques are presented. The yield stress as well as the strength were shown to increase with increasing strain and exceed the respective values of a coarse-grained material. The microstructure development and its fragmentation after equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was investigated by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The proportion of high angle grain boundaries was found to increase with increasing strain reaching the value of 90% after 8 ECAP passes. Two kinds of defects were identified in ECAP specimens by positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS): (a) dislocations which represent the dominant kind of defects, and (b) small vacancy clusters (so called microvoids). The main increase of defect density was found to occur during the first ECAP pass. PAS analysis indicated that in the specimens subjected to one ECAP pass the mean dislocation density ρD and the concentration of microvoids cν exceeded the values of 10 m and 10 at., respectively. After 4 passes, the number of defects becomes saturated and practically does not change with increasing strain.