Abstract
ECAE (Equal Channel Angular Extrusion) process was successfully used as an intense straining process to obtain ultra-fine 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 be also used as a texture-control method of long coiled strips by shear textures. Commercial purity aluminum annealed strips (1100-O) are successfully consheared at room temperature. The whole process is repeated up to four passes. The changes in structure, texture and mechanical properties in conshearing process and in subsequent annealing are investigated. It is found that the r-value, i.e. deep drawability is remarkably improved.
