Structural and mechanical behaviour of severe plastically deformed high purity aluminium sheets processed by constrained groove pressing technique

•High purity aluminium sheets constrained groove pressed up to plastic strain of 5.8.•Microstructural evolution studied by TEM and X-ray diffraction profile analysis.•Ultrafine grained structure with grain size ∼900 nm achieved in sheets.•Yield strength increased by 5.3 times and tensile strength doubled after first pass.•Enhanced deformation homogeneity seen with increased accumulated plastic strain.

High purity aluminium sheets (∼99.9%) are subjected to intense plastic straining by constrained groove pressing method successfully up to 5 passes thereby imparting an effective plastic strain of 5.8. Transmission electron microscopy studies of constrained groove pressed sheets divulged significant grain refinement and the average grain sizes obtained after five pass is estimated to be ∼0.9 μm. In addition to that, microstructural evolution of constrained groove pressed sheets is characterized by X-ray diffraction peak profile analysis employing Williamson–Hall method and the results obtained fairly concur with electron microscopy findings. The tensile behaviour evolution with increased straining indicates substantial improvement of yield strength by ∼5.3 times from 17 MPa to 90 MPa during first pass corroborated to grain refinement observed. Marginal increase in strengths is noticed during second pass followed by minor drop in strengths attributed to predominance of dislocation recovery is noticed in subsequent passes. Quantitative assessment of degree of deformation homogeneity using microhardness profiles reveal relatively better strain homogeneity at higher number of passes.