Development of repetitive corrugation and straightening

In this paper, we present recent developments in repetitive corrugation and straightening (RCS), a new severe plastic deformation (SPD) technique. Two refinements of the original RCS method are presented and results are shown for commercial purity copper that illustrate the associated improvements in the effectiveness of nanostructuring. Second-generation tooling was implemented using a bench scale rolling mill for continuous processing of sheet and bar. We have found that this design does not produce enough plastic strain per RCS cycle for effective grain refinement prior to the formation and growth of fatigue cracks. Third-generation tooling was designed to process sheet and increase the amount of shear deformation per iteration. The third-generation tooling design introduced significant shear strain and was found to be effective in grain refinement.