Deformation behavior and plastic instabilities of ultrafine-grained titanium

Ultrafine-grained (UFG) Ti samples have been prepared using equal channel angular pressing followed by cold rolling and annealing. The deformation behavior of these materials, including strain hardening, strain rate dependence of flow stress, deformation/failure mode, and tensile necking instability, have been systematically characterized. The findings are compared with those for conventional coarse-grained Ti and used to explain the limited tensile ductility observed so far for UFG or nanocrystalline metals. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.