59. Towards Extending ECAP Technology from Lab Scale to Manufacturing by Enhanced Multipass Continuous ECAP Process

Last two decades have witnessed innovations in the area of Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) for producing ultra-fine grained materials. But the manipulation of billets between consecutive passes of ECAP may cause problems in industrial set-ups where continuous processing is required. The paper examines developments related to modifying conventional ECAP with multipass continuous ECAP process to increase the process efficiency and techniques for upscaling the procedure. In first part, conventional ECAP is discussed with changes in mechanical properties of Al alloy, then, based on the problems encountered during experimentation, multipass continuous ECAP is proposed with FEM simulations carried out for 10 mm round Al7075 billet, simulating four passes in a single set-up. The equivalent strain after four passes in conventional ECAP for 70 mm billet is 5.21 which as compared to continuous ECAP for 1614 mm length is 7.4 (an increase of 48% for 1500% increase in length).