Study of Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP); Experimental and Modeling

Description of the project

Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) is one of the techniques in metal forming processes in which an ultra-large plastic strain is imposed on a bulk material in order to make ultra-fine grained and nanocrystalline metals and alloys. The technique is a viable forming procedure to extrude materials by use of specially designed channel dies without substantially changing the geometry by imposing severe plastic deformation. This technique has the potential for improving the mechanical properties by effective grain refinement to the level of the sub-microscale or nanoscale. These ultra-fine grained materials can be used in the manufacturing of semi-finished products used in the power, aerospace, medical and automotive industries.

Copper, with fcc structure, is a suitable material for basic studies of grain refinement mechanism and improvement of mechanical properties by ECAP. Therefore, to investigate the effect of number of passes and routes on microstructural and mechanical properties, ECAP process of Cu (experimental and simulation) will be carried out at different conditions.  

The assigned tasks involve

• Literature research
• Deformation of samples using ECAP device (available) in different conditions
• Developing 3D FEM model for ECAP process
• Verification of the results
• Preparing the final thesis

Required qualifications/skills/interests

• Basic knowledge of material science
• Basic knowledge of material characterization tests
• Basic knowledge of FEM modeling in ABAQUS (for M.Sc. thesis)

Depending on the thesis doing the content will be adapted!

If you are interested in this project, please send your CV to Somayeh.khani@tu-clausthal.de.