Theoretical Analysis of Equal Channel Angular Pressing Process by Upper Bound Method and Its Experimental Investigation in Condition of Circular Cross-Section Channel

The equal channel angular pressing process is one of the most effective severe plastic deformation processes to produce ultrafine grained steels metals. Also, the upper bound theory is one of the reliable theoretical tools to forecast deformation strain and forming load. In this research, analysis of equal channel angular pressing technique in an arbitrary channel and corner angles using upper-bound theory was performed and a general and user-friendly equation for predicting the forming force is proposed according to the geometry of process and elastic-plastic properties of work-piece material. By comparing the amount of obtained theoretical load with experimental forming force resulted from applying process on 7075 Al alloy, has been observed very good agreement between the results. This guarantees the reliability of the achieved general equation for equal channel angular pressing force. According to the results of the present research, experimental and theoretical forming load of equal channel angular pressing process on this material under conditions of channel angle 135°, corner angle 20°, billet diameter 10 mm, and billet length 90 mm were obtained equal to 48 kN and 55.04 kN, respectively. Furthermore, by increasing the channel angle from 60 to 150 under a constant corner angle of 20°, process load is decreased equal to 41.3% from 86.4 kN to 50.7 kN. In addition, by increasing the corner angle from 0° to 40° under a constant channel angle of 135°, the negligible reduction of a load equal to 2.5% was observed from 56 kN to 54.6 kN.