Grain refinement and properties of pure Ti processed by warm ECAP and cold rolling

This work explored a two-step severe plastic deformation process to produce ultrafine-grained (UFG) Ti with significantly enhanced strength. Warm equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was first used to refine the grain size of Ti billets to about 350 nm. The Ti billets were further processed by repetitive cold rolling (CR). This two-step process produced UFG Ti with strengths higher than those of common titanium alloys such as Ti-6Al-4V. This paper reports the microstructures, tensile properties, and thermal stability of these Ti billets processed by a combination of warm ECAP and CR. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.