Property distribution in aluminium material processed by gradation rolling

One approach in the area of material development is the designing of materials properties by grain refinement. Methods of severe plastic deformation (SPD) can create ultrafine-grained or nanostructured metallic materials with outstanding properties. The material is usually uniformly modified over the complete volume. The paper presents an innovative technological solution for efficient manufacturing of rod shaped specimen with locally different grain sizes. The resulting material properties in different regions of a graded aluminium billet are analyzed by hardness measuring and tension tests. The mechanical properties of processed standard aluminium specimen are investi-gated. A method for the investigation of the properties in different layers with tensile tests is presented. The mechanical parameters show the typical characteristics of coarse grained material in the core region, strain hardened material in the transition region and severely deformed material in the kneaded region of the specimen's outer layers.