Influences of temperature and grain size on the material deformability in microforming process

This paper investigated the influences of temperature and grain size on the deformability of pure copper in micro compression process. Based on the dislocation theory, a constitutive model was proposed taking into account the influences of forming temperature, Hall-Petch relationship and surface layer model. Vacuum heat treatment was employed to obtain various grain sizes of cylindrical workpieces, and then laser heating method was applied to heat workpieces during microforming process. Finite element (FE) simulation was also performed, with simulated values agreed well with the experimental results in terms of metal flow stress. Both the FE simulated and experimental results indicate that forming temperature and grain size have a significant influence on the accuracy of the produced product shape and metal flow behaviour in microforming due to the inhomogeneity within the deformed material. The mechanical behaviour of the material is found to be more sensitive to forming temperature when the workpieces are constituted of fine grains.