Project: High Strength Light Metals with Increased Ductility

Owing to their light weight and favourable combination of mechanical and physical properties, Al alloys and Ti are broadly applied in various industries. Their use has been, however, limited by strength not being sufficiently large for high-end applications. One of the ways to increase a material’s strength is to refine its microstructure down to a sub-micron scale. However, the ultra-fine grained (UGF) and nanostructured (NS) light metallic materials usually demonstrate very low ductility (formability). A few strategies have been recently developed to improve the tensile ductility of UFG and NS metals. However, they have not been implemented in the metal forming processes where the samples are deformed under complex stress states. The aim of the present project is to develop new processing routes for the fabrication of high strength UFG and NS rods with increased formability from an Al alloy and pure Ti ready for forming into final complex shape parts and to understand the fundamentals of the Processing Route- Microstructure -Deformation Mechanisms- Formability relationship in the Al alloy and commercially pure Ti.The major outcomes of the LIMEDU project will be, firstly, novel SPD processing routes based on hydrostatic extrusion for the fabrication of high strength rods of light metals with increased formability and, secondly, a profound quantitative relationship "Processing Route - Microstructure- Deformation Mechanisms-Formability". These outcomes will greatly enrich the fundamental and applied materials science with a new knowledge in the area of plastic deformation of UFG and NS metallic materials. Moreover, they will lead to a wide commercialization of UFG and NS metals in various industries since the metal forming industry will get a key for metal forming of high strength UFG and NS semi-products into final complex shape parts.

Acronym	LIMEDU (Reference Number: ESM-1889)
Project Topic	Engineering structural materials
Network	MATERA+
Call	Matera+ Call

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies	Coordinator	Spain
2	Polish Academy of Science	Partner	Poland
3	Carlos III University of Madrid	Partner	Spain