Forming behavior and workability of 6061/B4CP composite during hot deformation

Compression tests of 6061/B4CP composite have been performed in the compression temperature range from 300 degrees C to 500 degrees C and the strain rate range from 0.001 s(-1) to 1 s(-1). The flow behavior and processing map have been investigated using the corrected data to elimination of effect of friction. The processing maps exhibited two deterministic domains, one was situated at the temperature between 300 degrees C and 400 degrees C with strain rate between 0.003 s(-1) and 0.18 s(-1) and the other was situated at the temperature between 425 degrees C and 500 degrees C with strain rate between 0.003 s(-1) and 0.18 s(-1). The estimated apparent activation energies of these two domains, were 129 kJ/mol and 149 kJ/mol, which suggested that the deformation mechanisms were controlled by cross-slip and lattice self-diffusion respectively. The optimum parameters of hot working for the experimental composite were 350 degrees-0.01 s(-1) and 500 degrees C-0.01 s(-1). In order to exactly predict dangerous damaging mechanism under different deformation conditions exactly, Gegel's criterion was applied to obtain processing map in the paper. The result showed that the processing map used Gegel's criterion can be effectively to predict the material behavior of the experimental composite. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.