Characteristics of submicron grained structure formed in aluminum by equal channel angular extrusion

This work has shown that submicron grained (∼0.35 μm) structure can be formed by applying equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) to ε=8 at room temperature. In addition, the resulted submicron grained structure is characterized by a random microtexture. Based on the observation, it is suggested that grain subdivision and texture evolution, as well as local boundary migration are the possible mechanisms involved in the formation of submicron grains during severe plastic deformation.