Products made of metals and alloys with a fine-grained structure, which have high physical, mechanical and operational characteristics, are becoming increasingly in demand in many technical and technological fields. The most common and efficient technologies for the production of parts from this class of materials are various processes of severe plastic deformation (SPD) (in general practice, at low homologous temperatures). At the same time, to achieve high degrees of deformation, a significant part of metals and alloys require increased processing temperatures, undergo significant heating during deformation processes, which may be accompanied by changes in the grain and subgrain structure due to recovery and recrystallization processes. An empirical approach to the development of SPD modes that ensure the formation of the necessary grain structure requires huge time and financial costs, and therefore considerable attention is paid by researchers in the field of solid mechanics and metal forming to approaches and methods of mathematical modeling. In connection with the foregoing, the number of publications on this subject has been intensively growing in recent years. The currently known models differ significantly in their approaches, the depth of penetration into the physics of processes, and the scope of consideration. The proposed brief review is focused on a qualitative analysis of works on this topic, a preliminary classification of existing models according to their purpose, versatility, and functionality. It seems possible to single out the two most common approaches to describing the change in the grain structure in the processes of thermomechanical processing of metals and alloys: continual (in most cases, single-level) and multilevel, based on the introduction of internal variables and physical theories. This review is devoted to the consideration of publications focused on the first of these approaches. Until now, the most common are macrophenomenological continuum models based on the analysis of experimental data conducted both in laboratories on macrosamples and in real production conditions. Models of this class are usually formulated in the form of operator relations over field quantities, they are relatively easy to implement due to their easy “embedding” into widely used commercial software packages, but they require significant costs for experiments to identify models, they are characterized by a low degree of versatility. Continuous theories are relatively less common, but still often used. These theories are based on the description of physical mechanisms and the evolution of the structure of metals and alloys in terms of continuum variables.
Wide opportunities of using fine-grained materials as structural and functional materials with advanced physical and mechanical properties have proved the importance of improving the existing technology and creating new processing methods and treatment conditions for such ma-terials. At the same time, a preliminary theoretical analysis using mathematical models gives an opportunity to significantly reduce the cost of such experimental studies. Thus, it is necessary to develop multilevel models of polycrystalline metals and alloys based on crystal plasticity with the description of structure, deformation mechanisms and refinement at various scale levels. To con-struct a correct model of such a class, it is necessary to analyze information and arrange a large amount of experimental data about grain structure refinement. The article presents a review of the experimental studies describing and analyzing the grain structure refinement during severe plastic deformations of various metal alloys. The refine-ment mainly occurs at low temperatures that are a priori lower than the temperatures at which re-crystallization becomes an important factor and the solid-state phase transitions may take place. We have summarized the significant physical mechanisms of the grain refinement during cold deformation based on the arranged experimental data from the review. All the considered articles pay attention to the local accumulation of lattice dislocations inside the grains (in the form of flat clusters), which leads to the lattice curvature and separation of grains into cells. As a result of a further accumulation of dislocations in the walls, there comes an increase in misorientation of the neighboring cells. The curved lattice is unstable (it seems clear that the flat clusters become a source of such curvatures) and relaxes with the formation and movement of the partial disclina-tions, which leads to the rotation of the adjacent grain regions and creation of new grain bounda-ries. In addition, the mesoscale defects located at the junctions of the grains (including the boundary intersection disclinations), flat clusters of the dislocations of the orientational mismatch at the grain boundaries and partial dislocations in the grains have a significant effect on the frag-mentation. The articles about the severe plastic deformation at high temperatures are briefly de-scribed here. It is noted that recrystallization is the main mechanism of the fine-grained structure formation under these conditions. We suggest including the description of the discussed mechanisms in the multilevel con-stitutive material models. When new experimental data appear for a specific process of the severe plastic deformation, the considered refinement mechanisms can be added.
It is well known that the performance properties of products made of metals and alloys are determined mainly by the meso- and microstructure of the latter. The structure of materials is formed and undergoes significant changes in the processes of manufacturing parts and structures using thermomechanical processing methods. A very important parameter that determines the physical and mechanical characteristics of materials is the grain structure (size, shape, relative positions of grains and inclusions of various phases). In recent decades, in this regard, special attention has been paid to the processes of severe plastic deformation (SPD), which make it possible to obtain a submicro- and nanocrystalline grain structure, which provides a significant increase in the performance properties of products made of metals and alloys. The development of SPD technologies in modern conditions is unthinkable without mathematical modeling of the processes under consideration; the most important component in the development of such a "toolkit" are constitutive relations (or, more broadly, constitutive models). In connection with the foregoing, the latter should be able to describe the evolutionary structure at various scale levels. Until now, the practice of developers of materials processing technologies has been dominated by the use of macrophenomenological models based on classical continuum theories of plasticity, viscoplasticity, and creep. From the second half of the 20th century to the present, various improvements to the constitutive models of the above class have been proposed, in which additional parameters and kinetic equations are introduced for them, describing certain characteristics of the structure of materials. As a rule, such models make it possible to obtain an adequate picture of the changing structure, however, for specific materials and methods of thermomechanical treatment. At the same time, such models, unfortunately, do not have the necessary universality; when changing the material or processing method, they have to be significantly “customized” to specific conditions, up to a complete change in the relationships included in the model. A brief review of works devoted to the creation and application of models of this class is given in the previous article by the authors. The most promising and possessing a significant degree of universality, according to the authors, are currently multilevel constitutive models based on the introduction of internal variables and physical theories of plasticity (elastoviscoplasticity). A review of works that consider various aspects of the formulation, modification, numerical implementation and application of such models is proposed in this article. The main attention is paid to models focused on the description of changes in the structure of materials due to dislocation-disclination mechanisms; a brief note is given on models that take into account thermally activated diffusion mechanisms, due to which the processes of recovery and recrystallization are realized.
As both self-consistent and direct multilevel models (suggesting solution of boundary value problems at the meso-level) are extremely resource intensive, nowadays statistical crystal plasticity models are supposed to be the most promising ones for modeling technological processes of thermo-mechanical treatment of materials. The statement of a boundary value problem at the current configuration in the rate form is preferable, as it is convenient for applying numerical methods. In this case, step-by-step solution with redefining the computational domain configuration (including contacting surfaces) is possible. The two-level (macro- and meso-level) statistical constitutive model for describing deformation of polycrystalline metals and alloys, being formulated in terms of the actual configuration in the rate form, is proposed. The flexible coordinate system at the meso-level is connected with the symmetry elements of the crystallites, which determines appropriate choice of the corotational derivative in the constitutive relation. The approximate model for describing grain structure refinement on the basis of considering the amount of accumulated inelastic deformation as an integral characteristic of the defect structure state is included into the model. The results of the test calculations for describing loading processes, being relevant for equal-channel angular pressing, are given.
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