Effects of Strain Rate and Deformation Temperature on Microstructures and Hardness in Plastically Deformed Pure Aluminum

The microstructures and hardness of pure Al samples subjected to plastic deformation with different temperatures and strain rates were investigated. The results showed that the strain-induced grain refinement is significantly benefited by increasing strain rate and reducing deformation temperature. The saturated size of refined subgrains in Al can be as small as about 240 nm in cryogenic dynamic plastic deformation (DPD). Grain boundaries of the DPD Al samples are low-angle boundaries due to suppression of dynamic recovery during deformation. Agreement of the measured hardness with the empirical Hall-Petch relation extrapolated from the coarse-grained Al implies that the low-angle boundaries can contribute to strengthening as effective as the conventional grain boundaries.