Current practice and future opportunities for two-turn ECAP

Equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) is the most popular severe plastic deformation process used to refine grain structure of metals. However, its application exhibits inherent problems of low productivity and poor utilization of material. In order to address these problems, the ECAP channel with two-turns can be used. Historical examples and current applications of this configuration are provided including route BC version of the process. Route C version of two-turn ECAP is illustrated with a scaled-up process used for processing square inch cross section aluminium billets. To address another problem, that of short billets, it is suggested that future applications of two-turn ECAP are based on the new process of incremental ECAP; it enables decoupling feeding of the material and its deformation and thus reduces dramatically the feeding force for billets, plates and sheets.