EFFECT OF CHANNEL ANGLE AND FRICTION IN MODIFIED ECAP-CONFORM PROCESS OF Al-6061: A NUMERICAL STUDY

Equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) combined with the Conform process provides a solution for the continuous production of ultrafine-grained materials. In the present study finite element method was executed to investigate the effects of die channel angle and friction on the strain homogeneity and the required torque in ECAP-Conform process. Deformation behaviour of Al 6061 wires was analyzed by using the ABAQUS/Explicit software. Finite element analyses by considering different channel angles (90ᵒ, 100ᵒ and 110ᵒ) and various friction conditions of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 were surveyed. The results revealed two distinct trends in which by increasing the channel angle among 90ᵒ to 110ᵒ, the amount of induced plastic strain through the wire reduced about 40%. Also required processing torque was decreased about50%. In addition more homogeneity was observed in higher angle values. The results regarding to equivalent strain, obtained from FE analyses, showed a good agreement with previous studies. Eventually plastic strains and required torque were increased about 8% and 12% when friction coefficient raised between (0.2-0.4).