Severe plastic deformation as a new processing for enhancing the performance of metallic components

Severe plastic deformation emerged as new processing to fabricate ultrafine grain metallic materials with a grain size under one micron meter, or nanocrytalline metals in a bulk form. It was found that such ultrafine grain (UFG) and nanocrystalline metals have superior mechanical properties with high strength and relatively high ductility as well as corrosion properties. On the other hand, they also exhibit unique mechanical, physical and thermal properties ascribing to large fraction of grain boundaries and triple junctions, which may reach to more than 50 %. In this paper, equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) and mechanical, corrosion and thermal properties of UFG Fe-20%Cr steel fabricated by ECAP are presented.