Modelling compression tests on aluminium produced by equal channel angular extrusion

The main objective of this paper was to characterize the mechanical properties of commercial purity aluminium AA1050 after being submitted to the equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) process. Compression tests on cylindrical samples extracted from ECAE material are extensively described. The influence of ECAE conditions (number of passes, route, etc.) on the mechanical response is assessed. The extraction of the material behaviour from the experimental results is not straightforward because of inhomogeneities occurring during the test. Therefore, an inverse modelling with the finite element method was used to obtain accurate material parameters by optimization. It appeared that an accurate material yield locus (based on texture analysis) is necessary in order to reproduce the anisotropic behaviour of the ECAE material. On the other hand, its hardening behaviour during compression tests was satisfactorily represented by an elastic (near) perfectly plastic model.