Differential Speed Rolling: A New Method for a Fabrication of Metallic Sheets with Enhanced Mechanical Properties

Abstract

This chapter presents an actual progress in the usage of a new processing method called differential speed rolling (DSR) to a fabrication of metallic sheet materials with enhanced mechanical properties. An introduction of the rolls speed differentiation to a rolling process results with qualitative and quantitative changes of imposed strain and thus to new structural effects as compared to a conventional rolling. The presence of additional high through-thickness shear strain in the DSR technique is utilized to a substantial grain refinement (to a fabrication of high-strength ultrafine-grained materials) and therefore is regarded as one of the severe plastic deformation (SPD) methods. In this chapter, mechanical properties of selected DSRed metals are compared to those of their counterparts processed by competitive hydrostatic SPD methods. Moreover, the imposed complex strain state in the DSR method significantly affects a crystallographic texture of fabricated sheet materials leading to more favorable anisotropic characteristics and to an improved formability that is especially important in the case of aluminum and magnesium alloys.