Microstructural and hardness gradients in Cu processed by high pressure surface rolling

Abstract

The surface of an annealed Cu plate was processed by a high pressure surface rolling (HPSR) process. It is found that the deformed surface layer in the Cu plate after HPSR can be as thick as 2 mm and is characterized by a gradient microstructure, with grain sizes varying from the nanoscale in the topmost surface to the microscale in the bulk. The hardness varies from 1.37 GPa at the topmost surface to about 0.6 GPa in the coarse-grained matrix. The results of the investigation demonstrate that the HPSR process shows good potential for the generation of thick gradient microstructures on the surface of bulk metallic materials.