Materials and Design 30 (2009) 28312840

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Materials and Design

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The die structure design of equal channel angular extrusion for AZ31 magnesium alloy based on three-dimensional nite element method
Hu Hong-Jun a,*, Zhang DingFei a,b, Yang MingBo c
a

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 5 September 2008 Accepted 17 January 2009 Available online 23 January 2009 Keywords: AZ31 magnesium alloy Equal channel angular extrusion Finite element method Outer corner angle Deformation inhomogeneity

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1. Introduction
* Corresponding author. Fax: +86 2368851783. E-mail address: hhj@cqit.edu.cn (H.-J. Hu).

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0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2009.01.022

Ultra-ne grained materials have been widely investigated due to their improved mechanical properties such as high strength and ductility. Various techniques have been developed to obtain ultrane grained materials. Severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques, like equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE), high pressure torsion (HPT), cycling channel die compression (CCDC) and accumulative roll bonding (ARB) are most commonly for producing submicron grain structures in metallic materials at a relatively low cost. Among them, the equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE), originally developed by Segal, is one of the most effective methods to obtain these materials with high strength and toughness. In ECAE, a workpiece is pressed through a die that contains two channels with equal cross-section meeting at an angle. Because the cross-section of the workpiece remains the same during extrusion, the process can be repeated until the accumulated deformation reaches a desired level. High strain can be achieved. Finite element method is one of the important approaches to understand the

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a b s t r a c t
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National Engineering Research Center for Magnesium Alloys, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China College of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400045, China c College of Materials Science and Engineering, Chongqing Institute of Technology, Chongqing 400050, China
b

Equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) is widely investigated because of its potential to produce ultrane grained microstructures in magnesium alloys. It is crucial to understand the effect of die design on the deformation behavior, strain distribution and load requirement. In the paper new three-dimensional (3D) geometric models with different corner angles (90, 120) and with or without inner round llets in the bottom die were designed. Some important process parameters were regarded as the initial and boundary conditions used in DEFORM -3D software such as temperatures of the die and billet, the friction coefcient, etc. To ensure the convergence of the simulation, the geometrical and displacement conditions and reasonable convergence error limits, etc. have been considered. The deformation heterogeneity of ECAE was analyzed from the simulation and experimental results. The deformation homogeneity caused by llets at outer corner was improved comparing with the die without llets. The cumulate maximum strains decreased with the llets of outer corner manufactured in ECAE die and the inner corner angles increasing. The requirement extrusion force decreased with the llets made at outer corner angle in ECAE die. The analyses showed that better structures of ECAE die included appropriate outer corner llets and the inner corner angle 90. It was demonstrated that the predicted results were in good agreement with experiments and the theoretical calculation and the research conclusions from other literatures. 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

deformation occurring in the ECAE process. Many FEM-based analyses have been performed to determine the deformation behavior of materials and to estimate the developed strain in the ECAP process. These research work include the effect of channel angle and outer corner for frictionless condition by Raghavan S [1], the effect of channel angle and outer corner by Kim et al., the effect of outer corner on inhomogeneity by Suh J-Y et al. [2], the corner gap formation and its effect by Kim and Kim [3], the effect of channel angle and corner angle on material ow by Lang and Shyong [4], the extensive work on different material models, outer corner angle and coefcient of friction by Lee SC et al. [5], the work on origin of inhomogeneous behavior of metal by Wei et al. [6], the effect of backpressure by Son et al., the optimum die design for homogeneous plastic deformation by Yoon SC et al. [7]. However, these studies assumed two-dimensional (2D) approximation of plane strain condition and do not discuss the inhomogeneity of stress and strain. Results obtained by 2D analysis give limited information, in addition to the inherent 2D approximation errors. Some researchers [810] have explored the ECAE process using three-dimensions (3D) plasticity theoretic and simulation software. Luis Prez and Luri [11] used upper bound method to analyze in three-dimensions ECAE dies for rectangular or square cross-sec-

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Nomenclature

e ec
W

the inner corner angle () strain (mm/mm) critical strain (mm/mm) the outer corner angle ()

R _ e

radius of the inner corner (mm) effective strain rate (s1)

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tion where both internal and external radii were taken into account and the intersection angle was made. The 3D simulation analysis of ECAP was performed by Chung et al. [12] using a commercial nite volume method (FVM) code to analyze the effective strain and stress for one pass of the process. 3D FEM was applied to analyze the commercial pure Ti (CP-Ti) billet subjected to four-pass ECAE process at 400 C with Bc route in Ref. [13]. But there were few researchers adopted 3D simulation technologies to investigate the deformation behaviors of magnesium AZ31 especially the inuences of die structures on strain distributions and extrusion quality. Many of the early studies of ECAP were limited to the processing of soft pure metals or solid solution alloys. More recently, signicant attention has been devoted to the pressing of more complex alloys and some metals with limited numbers of slip systems especially for magnesium alloys. For these difcult-to-work materials, three different strategies have been adopted with the overall objective of achieving successful processing by ECAE. Current research interest is in the processing to obtain ne-grained bulk magnesium alloy specimens from ECAE [1420]. A sketch of such an ECAE die is shown in Fig. 1. The bottom die consists of two intersecting channels of the same cross-section meeting at an inner corner angle U (see Fig. 1). In this gure, the angle W denes the outer curvature of the intersection between the two channels. In this context, the use of the extreme principles, for instance, the upper bound method has gained a lot of attention to estimate the pressure needed for the plunger as well as the accumulated effective strain resulting from the ECAE method. The numerical simulation with the help of the nite element method (FEM) has been extensively used to better understating the ECAE method [2125]. The plastic deformation behavior during ECAE is governed mainly by the die geometry, the material itself and the processing conditions. Experimental data and nite element study of dies geometry inuence on ECAE process himself are presented. It is necessary to theoretically model the ECAE process in order to study various complicated effects for better process control. This study is to numerically analyze the deformation behaviors in equal channel angular extrusions (ECAE) of magnesium alloy AZ31 and predict the strains and extrusion forces of ECAE to form nanostructure process based on various die structures.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of an ECAP die showing inner corner angle (U) and outer corner angle (w).

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In the present work, a quasi-static solution to the ECAE method by the FEM simulation was carried out using dies with intersecting angles U = 90 and 120 by only one pass of extrusion. The four ECAE models have been erected in UG software and meshed and simulated in DEFORM -3D code. Numerical simulation procedures and modeling of the dies and billet, boundary conditions, convergence error limits for deformation simulations and element formulations have been introduced. The effects of different die geometries on the deformation inhomogeneity during ECAP were investigated. Experiments for two ECAE dies with or without llets have been done in laboratory to validate the simulation results. Because the evolution of the microstructures and mechanical properties of deformed material are directly related to the amount of plastic deformation, the understanding of the phenomenon associated with the strain development is very important in ECAE. Distributions of effective stress and strain, inuences of channel angle on the deformation in different zones and deformation homogeneity, maximum strain have been discussed in detail.
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2. Material models and simulation details The commercial FEM code, DEFORM 3D Version 5.0, was used to carry out the simulation of one-pass ECAE process. 2.1. Assumptions and numerical simulation procedures A wrought magnesium alloy AZ31 with 3% aluminum, 1% zinc was used as the billet material both in computer simulation and experimental verication. The numerical simulations were performed quasi-statically using a commercial nite element code (DEFORM -3D). DEFORM -3D was a commercial package developed by SFTC (Scientic Forming Technology Corporation). It was a nite element method (FEM) based process simulation system designed to analyze 3D ow of various metal-forming processes. It provided vital information about material and thermal ow during forming processes. The billet was assumed to be elasticplastic material. The following assumptions was adopted in present analysis: (1) both the container and the die are rigid bodies; (2) the extrusion billet was a rigid-plastic material; and (3) the friction factors between the extrusion billet and the ram, container, and die were constant. The simulation procedures were as follows: (1) the 3D geometries (billets, rams and dies) achieved by constructing 3D CAD models were dened in Unigraphics software. Geometries can be dened as 3D IGES or STL les. (2) Stopping stroke was set, the number of steps dened and simulation mode and English or SI units were selected. (3) The objects (billets and dies) were meshed. The objects were positioned, with the workpiece as the reference object; both tools and ram in contact with the workpiece. The materials properties were dened. (4) Thermal boundary conditions were dened. (5) Objects temperatures were initialized. (6) Contact boundary conditions were generated and friction coefcients between billets and dies, billets and rams were dened. (7) Ram movement parameters (direction and speed) were assigned. (8) The database was checked and generated and calculated, FEA to simulate the hot extrusion process was performed. (9) The simulation results were read from the postprocessor.

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2.2. Modeling of the dies and rams The die geometries used in the simulations are shown in Fig. 2. The billet coordinate axis (xyz) employed in the present study is shown in Fig. 2. The x-, y- and z-directions were parallel to extrusion direction (ED), vertical direction (ND) and transverse direction (TD), respectively. The channel angles U = 90 and U = 120 are considered and illustrated respectively in Fig. 2a and b and the corner angle (W) of the dies are assumed to equal to 0. The modied geometric models with inner round llets at the outer corner are shown in Fig. 2c and d. The geometrical parameters of the four ECAE dies for Fig. 2 are listed in Table 2. The channel angle corner radius at the intersection of the two channels was 2 mm and outer corner angle radius was 18 mm. The length of inlet channel was 50 mm and outlet channel length was 25 mm. Both the inlet and outlet channels had the same dimensions of square cross-section (16 mm). Table 3 gives the dimensions, extrusion speed and temperature used in computer simulation, etc., which are identical to those applied in extrusion experiments. The speed of ram (moved down along the inlet channel) was 10 mm s1 as in the simulations and experiments. The stroke of ram was 50 mm. For the sake of simplicity, the dies and pressing ram were assumed to be rigid bodies that undergo no permanent deformation,

which mechanical properties employed an H13 tool steel with the Young modulus and thermal conduction dependent on the temperature shown in Fig. 3a and b. Poissons ratio (m) was 0.3. Four distinct geometric models have been analyzed by (nite element

Table 2 The geometrical parameters of the ECAE die.

U ()
Fig. 3a Fig. 3b Fig. 3c Fig. 3d 90 90 120 120

W ()
0 90 0 60

R 0 18 0 18

r 0 2 0 2

Table 3 Simulation and experimental parameters.

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Friction factor between the billet and die AZ31 0.35 26.8E6 1780 kg/m3 0.35 45,000 MPa 0.12

Billet length (mm) Billet diameter (mm) insider diameter of ECAE die (mm) outside diameter of die (mm) Initial billet temperature (C) Initial tooling temperature (C) Strain rate range for ow stress measurement (s1) Temperature range for ow stress measurement (C) Ram speed (mm/s) Friction factor of the containerbillet interface

50 16 16 50 300 275 0.0110 250450 10 0.25 0.25

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Table 1 Physical properties of the AZ31 workpiece. Property Poissons ratio Coefcient of linear expansion Density Poissons ratio Youngs modulus Emissivity

Fig. 2. Schematic diagrams of the three-dimensional ECAP die FEM modeling showing: (a) channel angle equal to 90; (b) channel angle equal to 120; (c) channel angle 90 with outer corner angle; (d) channel angle 120 with outer corner angle, where r denotes the radius of the channel angle, R the radius of the outer corner angle.

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Fig. 3. The material properties for H13.

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analysis) FEA to reveal the deformation behaviors and their relationship with the design conguration. 2.3. Modeling of the billet The magnesium billet used in the calculations was a round cross-section (diameter 16 mm) and a length of 50 mm (16 mm 50 mm). The AZ31 was considered as an isotropic elasticplastic material. The tensile stressstrain curve at 300 C of AZ31 billet (annealed at 400 C for 12 h), as shown in Fig. 4, the ow stress/strain data obtained from the uniaxial compression tests were introduced into FEA using commercial software packages DEFORM -3D. The elastic properties were Youngs modulus E = 45 GPa and Poissons ratio m = 0.3. Material property parameters of the AZ31 workpiece are listed in Table 1.
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cedure when any element at the edge of the workpiece had been penetrated into and the penetration depth exceeded 30% of the original length of the surface edge that had a contact node at each end. 2.5. Boundary conditions 2.5.1. Contact and friction boundary conditions Contact boundary conditions were applied to nodes of billet, and specify contact between those nodes and the surface of ram. In order to assure the quadratic convergence of the NewtonRaphson method used in the code, the compressive displacements imposed on the billet top region in the vertical direction were xed in increments of 0.10 mm up to a total displacement of 50 mm. The NewtonRaphson method was recommended for most problems because it generally converged in less iteration than the other available methods. However, solutions were more likely to fail to converge with this method than with other methods. To represent the friction behavior as a consequence of the shear stress and the contact pressure, the generalized Coulombs law was used. The friction at the workpiecetooling interfaces was considered to be of shear-type. It was well known that this law stated proportionality between shear yield stress and the contact pressure due to the presence of the friction. Specically in the DEFORM code, this relation was veried by means of von Mises yield criterion corrected to the simple shear condition and was given by Eq. (1):

2.4. Meshing method In all simulations, an automatic remeshing scheme was used to accommodate large strains and to take into account the occurrence of ow localization, which prevented further calculation during the simulation. The elements were automatically remeshed if they became too distorted during ECAE simulation process. All the extrusion tooling included in the simulation was meshed with tetrahedral elements and its heat exchange with the workpiece incorporated into simulation. The simulation parameters used are listed in Table 3. To enhance the efciency of simulation and obtain specic resolutions in the areas of particular interest, a number of windows with an increased element density were applied to generate local ner elements, especially around the channel corner for die. To ensure simulation accuracy and stability, the absolute mesh density was used to keep the element size at any position nearly constant during the simulation, because it was this density that dened the number of elements per unit length on the surface of the workpiece. The minimum size of the element was 0.250.35 mm. The billet was divided into 20,000 four-node tetrahedral elements. Total number of elements of ram and die were 8000 and 20,000, respectively. The numbers of elements were found to be sufcient to express local deformation of the strain rate insensitive workpieces through calculations with varying the number of elements. To limit the sizes of simulation database les and enhance simulation speed, the round extrudate was cutoff at the length of 50 mm when its length exceeded 50 mm. A small relative interference depth of 0.3 was dened to trigger the remeshing pro-

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r s l p ;
3 k @T ni hT T w ; @ xi
2.6. Convergence studies in simulations

where s is the frictional shear stress and r is the effective ow stress of the workpiece. l (0 6 l 6 1) the friction factor. In the present simulations, a friction factor of 0.25 at the diebillet interface was chosen. The same friction factor was assumed at the interface between the billet and ram. 2.5.2. Temperature boundary condition Regardless of the heat transfer between the die and the ambience, the heat transfer between the billet and the die was considered. Newton cooling principle was used and expressed as Eq. (2):

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where h is the coefcient of the heat transfer between the material and die, Tw is the temperature of the die. ni is the normal in idirection. In this paper, the ambient temperature was considered as 25 C, and temperature of the ECAE die 275 C. The initial billet temperature was chosen to be at a relatively high level 300 C without running the risk of reaching the press force limit during experiments at high ram speeds. Heat transfer coefcient between tooling and billet was 11 N/C s mm2, and the value Heat transfer coefcients between tooling/billet and air are 0.02 N/C s mm2. Emissivity coefcients of the AZ31 and H13 tool steel were 0.12 and 0.7, respectively.

Fig. 4. True stress/true strain curves of AZ31 obtained from compression tests at 300 C under different strain rate and corrected for deformation heating during the testing.

Convergence of the investigated variable to a constant value by changing various numerical parameters is an essential procedure in nite element simulation [26]. The parameters that must be controlled are mesh size and topology (the minimum size of the element was 0.250.35 mm in this paper), contact parameters, remeshing parameters, increment size (time step was 0.01 s), convergence limits, solver parameters (the displacement increment was 0.1 mm), friction model parameters (Coulombs law used),

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kDuk  Velerr kuk

and

kDf k  Forerr ; kf k

3. Experimental details 3.1. Compression tests

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As-cast AZ31B rods with a diameter of 50 mm were used as the initial material in this study. Cylindrical specimen with a diameter of 10 mm and a height of 12 mm were machined from the rods with their longitudinal axis in parallel with the pre-extrusion direction. Uniaxial compression testing for hot workability analysis was carried out using a Gleeble 1500D machine in laboratory of national engineering research center for magnesium alloys in China. At a constant strain rate ranging from 0.01 to 10 s1 and at an initial temperature between 300 and 500 C. The specimen was resistance heated through a thermocouple sending feedback signals to control the AC-current. A very ne, fast-response thermocouple with a diameter of 0.08 mm was used to capture the temperature changes occurring during the tests that took a time span as short as a small fraction of a second to reach a true strain of 10. To avoid the difculties with welding and the risk of the detachment of the thermocouple from the specimen surface during testing, the thermocouple was inserted in a very small hole drilled into the specimen at the mid-height. Graphite foils were placed between the specimen and platens for lubrication. The specimen was heated to a pre-set temperature at a rate of 10 Cs1, soaked for 60 s to ensure temperature equilibrium and then compressed to a height of 4.4 mm, reaching a true strain of 10. All the tests were performed in vacuum. The ow stress curves measured in these tests were corrected and a set of ow stressstrain curves are shown in Fig. 4 as examples.

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4. Results and discussion

where ||u|| is Euclidean norm of nodal velocity at current iteration, ||Du|| Euclidean norm of the difference between the nodal velocity at the current iteration and the nodal velocity at the start of the iteration procedure, Velerr velocity convergence error limit, ||f|| Euclidean norm of nodal force at current iteration, ||Df|| Euclidean norm of the difference between the nodal force at the current iteration and the nodal force at the start of the iteration procedure, Forerr force convergence error limit, a positive non-zero value must be assigned to Velerr. If Forerr is assigned a zero value, nodal force will not be checked for convergence. The default value is recommended for most problems. In order to assure the quadratic convergence of the Newton Raphson method used in the DEFORM code, the top billet displacements were xed in increments of 0.25 mm up to a total displacement of 50 mm. In simulation module of the Deform 3D software, the velocity convergence error limit was 0.005 and force convergence error limit was 0.05.

An important point to be noted in FEM simulations of ECAE was that FEM analysts unconsciously control the die geometries to improve the efciency of their simulations. The most frequent arbitrary and the least investigated parameter was the channel angle (U). Based on the results obtained from the simulations, the distributions of effective stress and strain during an ECAE process have been described. Inuence of the channel angle on deformation homogeneity, maximum strain (emax), the required load, etc. were discussed in this section. 4.1. The distributions of effective stress and strain during an ECAE process Examination of the predicted strains provided quantitative insight into the deformation behavior of billet during ECAE. Fig. 5 shows the effective strain and stress contours of billet during one pass, which provided the important information regarding the strain distribution. Fig. 5a and b is the distributions of the equivalent stress and strain for step 50 when the ECAE die includes channel angle 90 without llets at channel angle. The effective stresses of the material were not even seen from Fig. 5a and c, and the maximum effective stress was about 165.6 MPa at the corner near the wall of the bottom die at step 100. The grains were not the same size after the rst extrusion corresponding with the experiment results of professor R.Z. Valiev and others [27,28]. The deformation of the initial extrusion was non-uniform, and the highest strain (3.7) from Fig. 5b located at outer corner in the step 50. Distributions of the strain were lamellar with distinct deformation gradients at the corner. The deformation of this position was close to the simple shear deformation, but deformation heterogeneity became better in the step 100 from Fig. 5d than step 50 from Fig. 5b. 4.2. Inuences of channel angle on the deformation in different zones The strain was near zero at the leading triangular portion of the top of the head as shown in Fig. 6a and c. Maximum strain in the whole workpiece was seen in the plastic deformation zone. At the end of the head zone channel gap was observed for 120 die.

and geometry presentation models for dies and tools. Among these numerous parameters, obviously the most important ones are mesh size and topology, convergence limits, and time steps. The convergences of the simulations were dependent on the initial guess of the stressstrain state. Three initial guess solutions are available: (1) Plastic solution: uses the purely plastic deformation data to generate the initial guess. (2) Elastic solution: uses the purely elastic deformation data to generate the initial guess. (3) Previous step solution: uses the elasto-plastic solution from the previous step to generate the initial guess. The previous step solution seems to give the best convergence in most cases. If convergence is poor for a particular problem, the elastic or plastic solution can be used. Convergence for each step is based on the velocity and force convergence error limits as Eq. (2). Convergence is assumed when:

3.2. Validation tests The billet material was the same as that used in the compression tests and FEA. In order to validate the results of nite element analysis, the ECAE dies of channel angle 90 without llets and with llets at corner angle were designed and manufactured to perform the actual extrusion processes. The billets and the die in experiment had identical geometrical parameters and material with those in simulations. The die material, die dimensions, billet dimensions and extrusion conditions were all the same as those used in numerical simulation as described above. Before extrusion the billets were machined into rods with diameter of 16 mm. both the billet and channels of the die were well coated with graphitic lubricant. Real extrusion experiments were carried out employing a 2MN press operating in the direct extrusion mode. Extrusion experiments were carried out with a resistance heated container and a heater. The billet was heated in an external furnace up to 300 C and moved into the die preheated to 275 C to avoid too much heat dissipation and then extrusion started immediately. Ram speed was 5 mm/s during experimental verication. Extrusion pressure was measured by a pressure sensor and ram time. After the extrusion cycle, the evolutions of extrusion force during extrusion were plotted against extrusion strokes.

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Fig. 5. The distributions of the equivalent stress and strain with angle 90 without outer corner llets: (a) contours of effective stress of step 50: (1) head, (2) steady-state zone, (3) plastic deformation zone, and (4) tail; (b) contours of effective strain of step 50; (c) contours of effective stress of step 100; (d) contours of effective strain of step 100. Different zones of deforming workpiece.

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The channel gap for 90 was smaller. The strain was zero at the tail zone. At the intersection of the two channels, the workpiece did not ll the corner completely leading to formation of a gap. The corners were completely lled in the case of perfectly plastic material. It was observed from Fig. 6a and c that the corner gap increases with increase in channel angle. Formation of the corner gap can be attributed to material property and channel angle of the die. From Fig. 6b and d, the 90 ECAE die would cause higher accumulated strain than 120 but damage the shape heavier. 4.3. The analysis of deformation homogeneity for the ECAE products As the workpiece exits from the plastic deformation zone, the strain distribution starts to stabilize and there is no further variation in the strain. Increase in the stroke length will increase this portion of the steady-state zone. The angle of curvature, U, denotes the outer arc where the two parts of the channel intersect within the die. This angle plays only a minor role in determining the strain imposed on the sample. Nevertheless, it is important to investigate the inuence of this angle in the production of ultra-ne-grained materials. Fig. 6 shows the distributions of the equivalent strains at extrusion step 50 and 100 caused by ECAE dies with channel angle 90 and 120 with llets at the outer corner. It can be found clearly that the deformation homogeneity was increased in Fig. 6a and b comparing with the contours in Fig. 5b and d, at the same time the effective strain decreased. The shape of billet in Fig. 6b was less damaged than that of Fig. 5d. To quantify the degree of deformation inhomogeneity, a deformation inhomogeneity index C was dened as Eq. (4):

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C

emax emin ; epi ave

D
4

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Fig. 6. The distributions of the equivalent strain with inner angle 90 and 120 and inner channel angle llets: (a) contours of effective stress of step 50 with inner channel angle 90; (b) contours of effective strain of step 100 with inner channel angle 90; (c) contours of effective strain of step 50 with inner channel angle 120; (d) contours of effective strain of step 100 with inner channel angle 120.

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Table 4 Deformation inhomogeneity index at extrusion step 100. The ECAE die structure Inner corner angle 90 without llets Inner corner angle 90 with llets Inner corner angle 120 without llets Inner corner angle 120 with llets

where emax, emin and eave denote the maximum, minimum and average of equivalent plastic strains, respectively. The effective strain and deformation inhomogeneity indexes under different conditions of extrusion step 100 are all listed in Table 4. It was found that the effective strains (including emax, emin, eave) decreased with the increasing of channel angle (U) and llets at corner angle. The deformation inhomogeneity indexes varied with the inner corner angle (U) and with llets or not. The homogeneity caused by ECAE die with inner corner angle 90 and llets at outer corner was the best from Table 4. Conclusions can be drawn that raising the channel angle and machining llets at outer corner would improve the deformation homogeneity but reduce the cumulative strain simultaneously. AZ31B rods extruded by die angle 90 ECAE without and with llets at outer channel corner are shown in Fig. 7a and b, respec-

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emax
4.08 3.727 1.86 1.62

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tively. It was seen that the billets were sound after one pass simulations as shown in Figs. 5d and 6d. It was clear that there were continuous cracks and pure brittle failures appearing on the surface of the rod in Fig. 7a. Better surface nish without any defects products have been found as shown in Fig. 6b, which meant that the deformation homogeneity of rod in Fig. 7b was better than that in Fig. 7a. The deformation homogeneity caused by die inner angle 90 ECAE with llets at outer corner was better than that created by die inner corner angle 90 without llets. In general larger chanemin
0.107 0.39 0.096 0.07

eave
0.0401 0.0556 0.045 0.04

C 99.1 60 39.2 38.8 Fig. 7. Extrusion rods in laboratory: (a) extruded by 120 die and (b) 90 die.

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nel angle with llets would lead to lesser strain but more homogeneous strain distribution. 4.4. The maximum strain during ECAE during whole ECAE process Die channel angle has an essential effect to the deformation of the workpiece. The distribution of effective strain of the pressed workpiece is independent on the pressing direction or the workpieces length. It can be thought that the deformation distribution in a cross-section of the main deformation zone (MDZ) indicates that of the whole workpiece. The denition of MDZ is the zone in which effective strain is bigger and more homogeneous and in which the grains had been rened. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the deformation distribution discussions of a cross-section according to the nite element analysis results. And variation of the effective strain across the width of the workpiece was analyzed and the effective strain was plotted across the workpiece width. Fig. 8 shows variation curves of effective strain with different die channel angles of main deformation zone (MDZ). The simulation results are given by gures (illustrated in Fig. 2). The effective strains of MDZ in the workpiece reduced relatively with the increase of die channel angle during ECAP process. The cumulate maximum strains of MDZ calculated by Eq. (5) and simulation results are listed in Table 5. From the simulation and theoretical calculation the cumulative maximum strains of MDZ caused by the ECAE die with angle 90 were higher than those of the die with angle 120 with the llets and decreasing of channel angle. The maximum effective strain decreased sharply comparing with the models (in Fig. 2a and b) with the same corner angles:

with U = 120. In order to improve the efciency of accumulative deformation, consequently, it should adopt a die with U = 90 if the material of die is strengthen enough. And it should adopt a die with U = 120 if the resistance force is so bigger, it is important to consider the strength of die and effective strain. For this point, the die channel angle of ECAP should be carefully considered and selected. The dynamic recrystallization is a function of strain, strain rate, temperature, and initial grain size, which change in time. The Avrami equation is used to describe the relation between the dynamically recrystallized fraction X and the effective strain:

2 cot

U
2

 W csc U W W 2 2 2 p : 3

As can be seen from this Table 5, if we wanted to obtain at

e = 10, it need less than 2 passes of pressing to accumulate defor-

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mation to obtain effective strains using a die with U = 90, and that the passes number of pressing is more than 2 while using a die

Fig. 8. The maximum strain curves under the four conditions of die structures.

Table 5 The calculated and simulated cumulative maximum strains under different conditions during whole ECAE process. Inner corner angle (U) 90 Calculation form Eq. (2) Without llets at outer angle With llets at outer angle 3.17 2.93 Simulation results 5.45 5.2 120 Calculation form Eq. (2) 2.3 0.92 Simulation results 5 4.1

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5
4.5. The curves of load and stroke

From Eq. (6), the dynamically recrystallized fraction X increases with the effective strain increasing. It can be concluded that the dynamically recrystallized fraction caused by ECAE die with angle 90 was much more than that induced by ECAE die with angle 120 as higher strains is produced by the former than the latter. In literature [29], AZ31 Mg alloy was prepared through two different ECAE dies, in which the intersecting angles between channels are 90 and 120, respectively. Mechanical properties of the alloy after twelve passes of pressing in the 120 die were very close to that after eight passes of pressing in the 90 die. That is to say the strain per pass caused by 90 die was much higher than that of the 120 ECAE die. From the metallographic Fig. 9. After one-pass ECAP, the alloy grains are effectively rened by dynamic recrystallization (DRX). It could be found that one-pass pressing produced some tiny subgrains around original coarse grains, and ner grains appeared for the processing in the 90 die than that in 120 die.

The gures in Fig. 10 illustrate that the extrusion loads of simulations and experiments are various during extruding including the loads caused by corner angle 90 die with or without llets and the simulation results caused by 120 die with or without llets. Fig. 10a and b shows the predicted and experimental loads caused by 90 die with or without llets, respectively. Among gures the curves of forcestroke induced by dies with inner corner angle 90 including llets or not were measured by a pressure sen-

Fig. 9. Typical microstructures of ECAPed AZ31 Mg alloys with one pass: (a) in 120 die and (b) in 90 die.

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H.-J. Hu et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 28312840 Table 6 Required extrusion forces under different conditions. Inner corner angle (U) 90 Simulation Without llets at outer corner (N) With llets at outer corner (N) 2259 1848 Experiments 2197 1745

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Fig. 10. Curves of loadstroke under different conditions: (a) the simulation and experimental results of 90 die without llets, (b) the simulation and experimental results of 90 die with llets and (c) the simulation results of 120 die with or without llets.

vere plastic deformation. The load increased rapidly to the maximum load, this stage was not steady. In the extrusion steady stage, the billet continuously passed through the corners of the die. The load oscillated about an average value and decreased gradually. The deformation of billet was mainly achieved in this stage. The corner angle 120 determined the highest level of deformation load as much as 3000 N in Fig. 10c; it got to a maximum after about 45 mm of travel stroke. The situation correspond the time range where the die channel lls with material. Further, the deformation load decreased as the entire billet went through the deformation, marked by the bisecting plan of the two channels of equal sections. The presence of inner radius transition (r = 18 mm) between channels not spectacular reduced the load. The maximum loads of the top die without llets were 2259 N and the correspondence corner angles 90 (Fig. 10a). If the dies with llets were used (shown in Fig. 2c and d) the loads of top die drop comparing with the corresponding angles without llets. The required extrusion forces under different conditions are listed in Table 6. It was obvious that the die channel angle was an important factor to inuence pressing load, the pressing load decreased rapidly with the increase of die channel angle. The conclusion is that the llets at the outer corner in ECAE die can reduce the requirement of extrusion forces for press. It is necessary to understand the distribution and magnitude of effective strain are analyzed during pressing. However, the extrusion pressure also takes inuence on the die life. Accordingly, it is important to calculate and predict the inuence of channel angle on pressing load and effective strain distribution of workpiece. On one side, the pressing load can be decreased with increase of channel angle to improve the die life of ECAP. On the other side, the effective strains in the workpiece can be decreased when channel angle is increased. 5. Conclusions A full 3D FEM simulation of as-cast AZ31 magnesium alloy billet subjected to one-pass ECAE process at 300 C was carried out successfully. Numerical and physical modeling has helped in a big way understand the deformation behavior of AZ31 magnesium alloy during ECAE. The importance of channel angle and llets at corner angle has been realized in this study. It is found that the equivalent strains during the whole ECAE process increased by comparing the 3D FEM simulation results with theoretical calculation. Deformation heterogeneity of billet during ECAE was analyzed, which reveals the insufciency of the previous 2D nite element model. The existing llets at corner angle could improve the deformation inhomogeneity. The billet showed inhomogeneous deformation on the surface of the billet with channel angle 90 and 120 and without or without llets after one-pass ECAE. The deformation homogeneity with llets at corner angle is better than that without llets from the simulation and experimental results, because llet at the inner channel surface junction where the two straight channels meet helps process materials with high percentage of ow softening. From the simulation and theoretical and literature results, the smaller inner corner angle can obtain the higher cumulative strains and produce more tiny subgrains.

sor and strokes from the above experiments shown in Fig. 10a and b. As was seen, there was a good matching between simulation level and experimental values. The values for maximum extrusion forces were obtained from the nite element simulation by highresolution history plots. From the gures of Fig. 10 the extrusion load curve can be divided into two stages: the extrusion initial stage and the steady stage. At the initial stage of the extrusion, when contacting with die corners, the billet was subjected to se-

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H.-J. Hu et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 28312840 difference method and comparison with experiment. Mater Sci Eng A 2008;493:14859. Luis Prez CJ, Luri R. Study of the ECAE process by the upper bound method considering the correct die design. Mech Mater 2008;40:61728. Chung SW, Somekawa H, Kinoshita T, Kim W, Higashi K. The non-uniform behavior during ECAE process by 3D FVM simulation. Scr Mater 2004;50:107983. Jiang Hong, Fan Zhiguo, Xie Chaoying. 3D nite element simulation of deformation behavior of CP-Ti and working load during multi-pass equal channel angular extrusion. Mater Sci Eng A 2007;485:40914. Valiev RZ, editor. Ultrane-grained materials prepared by severe plastic deformation. Ann des Chim Sci des Mater 1996;21:369. Zhernakov VS, Latysh VV, Zharikov AI, Valiev RZ. The developing of nanostructure SPD Ti for structural use. Scr Mater 2001;44:17714. Ahmadeev NH, Valiev RZ, Kopyloy VI, et al. Russ Met 1992;5:96. Iwahashi Y, Horita Z, Nemoto M, Langdon TG. The process of grain renement in equal-channel angular pressing. Acta Mater 1998;46:331731. Iwahashi Y, Horita Z, Nemoto M, Langdon TG. Acta Mater 1997;45:3347. Gholiniaa A, Prangnell PB, et al. The effect of strain path on the development of deformation structures in severely deformed aluminium alloys processed by ECAP. Acta Mater 2000;48:115. Gertsman VYu, Birringer R, Valiev RZ, et al. Scr Met Mater 1994;30:2294. Berbon PB, Tsenev NK, Valiev RZ, et al. Met Mater Trans 1998;29A:2237. Kim WJ, Kim JK, Chao WY, Hong SI, Lee JD. Mater Lett 51; Baudelet. Acta Metall 1994;42:246-75. Valiev RZ, Kozlov EV, Ivanov YuF, Lian J, Nazarov AA, Baudelet B. Acta Met Mater 1994;42:2467. Kim I, Kim J, Shin DH, Lee CS, et al. Effects of equal channel angular pressing temperature on deformation structures of pure Ti. Mater Sci Eng 2003;342:30210. Kim I, Jeong WS, Kim J, Park KT, Shin DH. Scr Mater 2001;45:57581. Luis-Prez C. On the correct selection of the channel die in ECAP processes. Scr Mater 2004;50:38793. Shin DH, Kim BC, Park K-T, Choo WY. Microstructural changes in equal channel angular pressed low carbon steel by static annealing. Acta Mater 2000;48:324552. Li S, Bourke MAM, et al. Finite element analysis of the plastic deformation zone and working load in equal channel angular extrusion. Mater Sci Eng A 2004;382:21736. Li Yuan-Yuan, Liu Ying, NGAITgiLeo, et al. Effects of die angle on microstructures and mechanical properties of AZ31 magnesium alloy processed by equal channel angular pressing. Trans Nonferrous Met Soc China 2004;01:538.

The loads of top die decrease mainly with llets at corner angle. The main function of the channel angle is the effect of strain distribution. The ECAE die with the channel angle 90 and llets is good to improve the plasticity and deformation homogeneity of the billets made of AZ31 magnesium if the extrusion force is enough. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the key basis problems in process and preparations for high performance of magnesium alloys of State 973 Plan (2007CB613700), science support item of support plan for the 11th National Five-Year Plan (2006BAE04B03), Researches on mathematical models of solidication segregation in Continuous casting and simulation technologies (No. CST, 2007bb4413). References
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