Microstructure and texture inhomogeneity after large non-monotonic simple shear strains: Achievements of tensile properties

© 2018 by the authors. In this study, for the first time, the effect of large non-monotonic simple shear strains on the uniformity of the tensile properties of pure Cu specimens was studied and justified by means of microstructural and textural investigations. A process called simple shear extrusion, which consists of two forward and two reversed simple shear straining stages on two different slip planes, was designed in order to impose non-monotonic simple shear strains. Although the mechanism of grain refinement is continuous dynamic recrystallization, an exceptional microstructural behavior and texture were observed due to the complicated straining path results from two different slip planes and two pairs of shear directions on two different axes in a cycle of the process. The geometry of the process imposes a distribution of strain results in the inhomogeneous microstructure and texture throughout the plane perpendicular to the slip plane. Although it is expected that the yield strength in the periphery reaches that of the center by retardation, it never reaches that value, which results in the different deformation modes of the center and the periphery. The occurrence of shear reversal in each quarter of a cycle results in the elimination of some of the boundaries, an increase in the cell wall thickness, and a decrease in the Taylor factor. Change in the shear plane in each half of a cycle leads to the formation of cell boundaries in a different alignment. Since the direction of the shear and/or the shear plane change frequently in a cycle, the texture of a sample after multi-cycles of the process more closely resembles a random orientation