Abstract
We carried out this study to evaluate the grain refining in and the mechanical properties of alloys that undergo severe plastic deformation (SPD). Conventional rolling (CR) and cross-roll rolling (CRR) as SPD methods were used with Ni-20Cr alloy as the experimental material. The materials were cold rolled to a thickness reduction of 90% and subsequently annealed at $700^{\circ}C$ for 30 min to obtain a fully recrystallized microstructure. For the annealed materials after the cold rolling, electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) analysis was carried out to investigate the grain boundary characteristic distributions (GBCDs). The CRR process was more effective when used to develop the grain refinement relative to the CR process; as a result, the grain size was refined from $70{\mu}m$ in the initial material to $4.2{\mu}m$ (CR) and $2.4{\mu}m$ (CRR). These grain refinements have a direct effect on improving the mechanical properties; in this case, the microhardness, yield and tensile strength showed significant increases compared to the initial material. In particular, the CRR-processed material showed more effective values relative to the CR-processed materials. The different texture distributions in the CR (001//ND) and CRR (111//ND) were likely the cause of the increase in the mechanical properties. These findings suggest that CRR can result in materials with a smaller grain size, improved texture development and improved mechanical properties after recrystallization by a subsequent annealing process.
