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One of the fundamental problems of Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) process is tool electrode wear. In this study, ultra fine grains (UFG) structure of pure copper was used to improve performance and also increase the electrical wear resistance of tool electrode. Equal Channel Angular Pressing (ECAP) was used to reduce the crystal size of pure copper. Samples were processed through ECAP die up to 8 passes, and then used as electrode in EDM process. The effect of electrodes grain size, discharge current, and machining time on the metal removal of the work piece and electrical wear of the electrodes were investigated. In addition, the microstructure, and electrical conductivity of copper tool electrodes were examined. By applying the ECAP on pure copper a fine, approximately 50-200 nm grain size, microstructure was obtained after 8 passes. The results show that for finer crystalline structure of copper electrodes, electrical wear decreases but material removal rate is somehow constant.

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Equal channel angular pressing is one of the most effective severe plastic deformation processes for fabrication of ultrafine grained or even nanostructured materials. Among the metallic biomaterials, commercially pure titanium exhibits the best mechanical properties, compared with other alloys. In this study, the effect of work-piece cross section on the mechanical properties of commercially pure titanium produced by this process has been investigated. The work-pieces in two types of cross section(square and circular) are pressed one pass in the square channel with angle 120° at room temperature and effects of cross section on the forming load, grain size, hardness, strength and toughness was studied. Finite element simulation by using the ABAQUS software has been performed for forecasting the forming load, equivalent plastic strain and investigation of effects of geometry parameters of die channel on these. The simulation results have shown good agreement with experimental results. Through analysis of results, it is found that by using the work-piece with circular cross section at equal channel angular pressing process, not only decreased the required pressing load, but also significantly improved the mechanical properties of the materials such as hardness and strength as compared to using the work-piece with square cross section.

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Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) is one of the most effective processes to produce ultra-fine grain (UFG) and nano-crystalline (NC) materials. Commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) has a significant potential to be used as a biomedical and implant material because it shows excellent biocompatibility properties. This material has the low static and dynamic strengths. By applying the ECAP process, the strength of CP-Ti could be developed. The elastic recovery during unloading or spring-back phenomenon is one of the most sensitive parameters in sheet and bulk metal forming processes. This phenomenon leads to some unfavorable geometrical and dimensional changes in the final products and it must be decreased. In this study CP-Ti of Grade 2 is ECAPed at the room temperature via a channel angle of 135° for 3 passes. The microstructural analysis and mechanical tests such as the tensile and three-point bending tests are all performed on the ECAPed CP-Ti. The microstructural evolution reveals that by applying the ECAP, coarse grain (CG) structure develops to UFG structure. Moreover, the results of the mechanical tests show that applying the ECAP significantly increases tensile and bending strengths of the CP-Ti. Investigation of springback in three-point bending of unECAPed/ECAPed CP-Ti is conducted by experimental and finite element simulation methods using the Abaqus software. The results of this study reveal that by applying the ECAP, spring-back values increase. Thus, to eliminate the disadvantages of springback phenomenon, this should be considered in design and manufacturing of products include bent made of ECAPed material.

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In recent years, Mg alloys have received much attention as a promising candidate for raw material in biodegradable vascular stent. Forming of Mg alloys is difficult because of poor workability of them at room temperature. Hence this presents a technological barrier to the fabrication of initial micro-tube for a biodegradable stent. With regard to high biodegradability of the magnesium alloy WE43 to manufacture biodegradable stent, it has been selected as initial with casted structure. In this study, for enhancing mechanical properties and attaining micro tube a combination of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) with extrusion and micro extrusion was used and Mg bars were fabricated to high-quality micro-tubes with refined microstructure. Fine-grained size billets of the WE43 alloy were obtained by one-pass of ECAP. The processed Mg bar was extruded into a bar with 5 mm in diameter. Finally, a UFG and high strength micro tubes with an outside diameter of 3.4mm and a wall thickness of 0.25mm were successfully produced by micro extrusion process. Mentioned processes were simulated using finite element (FE) simulations. The result shows the grain size of Mg incredibly reduced after this combined method and mechanical properties were significantly improved.

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In this paper, effects of severe plastic deformation (SPD) on the fatigue crack growth, mechanical properties, texture, roughness and fracture toughness of Al-6063 were studied. The Al-6063 alloy was deformed by ECAP process. The average grain size refined to less than 100nm. The textural study conducted before and after ECAP process. The fatigue crack growth tests were performed for different load range at same load ratio. The yield and ultimate stresses increased about 230% and 79% after ECAP process, respectively. The elongation reduced from 16.6% to 7% after four passes of ECAP process. The fatigue crack growth rate increased after first pass of ECAP process. The Paris equation parameters changed before and after ECAP but there is no significant change for different load ranges. The fracture toughness decreased after first pass of ECAP process. The atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used for measuring roughness. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) pictures were made for fracture surface study. The ductile and fissured fracture with large dimples were seen before ECAP process. The fracture surface with refined dimples observed after ECAP process.

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To determination of equal-channel angular pressing(ECAP) process on the stress-strain behavior of  steel core of steel/copper bimetal and also effect of Cu-shell thickness on the created surface stretch during ECAP, the bimetallic samples composed of steel rods with 8 mm diameter and copper shells with 0.75 mm thickness are prepared. The both bimetallic samples and steel rods with 9.5 mm are subjected to consecutive ECAP process using die with inner angle 90^o and an outer curvature corner angle of 30^o. The applied load and punch displacement are recorded during samples passing through an ECAP die. The tensile testing is carried out on both the initial and ECAPed series. Moreover, dependence of surface stretch to diameters, shell thickness and strength properties of constituents of core/shell bimetallic rods is analytically modeled. Then, the finite element method(FEM) is used to investigate the effect of Cu-shell thickness. The obtained results revealed that the ultimate tensile strength of bimetallic core and steel rods are improved approximately 60% and 108% by ECAP deformation, respectively. The applied punch load for passing of bimetallic sample through an ECAP die is 54% less than the ones for steel rod. According to the FEM results, the maximum value of surface stretch is linearly decreased with increasing the thickness of copper shell. The obtained results show a good agreement between the analytical model and FEM approach.