Development of the continuous shear deformation process

Abstract
The equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) process has been successfully used as an intense straining process to obtain ultrafine-grained metals. However, the process is essentially discontinuous and the productivity is quite low for industrial purposes. The authors have proposed a novel continuous shear deformation process called ‘conshearing’ to solve this problem. This process can also be used as a novel texture control method for long coiled strips by introducing shear textures. In this paper, the principle of the process is described and analysed mechanically. Commercial purity aluminium annealed strips are successfully consheared at room temperature. The whole process is repeated up to four passes. The changes in structure, texture and mechanical properties in the conshearing and in subsequent annealing are investigated. It is found that the r value, i.e. deep drawability, is remarkably improved by the development of shear texture. It is concluded that conshearing is an effective process for texture control as well as for microstructure control.