Evolution of the grain structure of metals and alloys under severe plastic deformation: continuum models

Products made of metals and alloys with a fine-grained structure, which have high physical, mechanical and operational characteristics, are becoming increasingly in demand in many technical and technological fields. The most common and efficient technologies for the production of parts from this class of materials are various processes of severe plastic deformation (SPD) (in general practice, at low homologous temperatures). At the same time, to achieve high degrees of deformation, a significant part of metals and alloys require increased processing temperatures, undergo significant heating during deformation processes, which may be accompanied by changes in the grain and subgrain structure due to recovery and recrystallization processes. An empirical approach to the development of SPD modes that ensure the formation of the necessary grain structure requires huge time and financial costs, and therefore considerable attention is paid by researchers in the field of solid mechanics and metal forming to approaches and methods of mathematical modeling. In connection with the foregoing, the number of publications on this subject has been intensively growing in recent years. The currently known models differ significantly in their approaches, the depth of penetration into the physics of processes, and the scope of consideration. The proposed brief review is focused on a qualitative analysis of works on this topic, a preliminary classification of existing models according to their purpose, versatility, and functionality. It seems possible to single out the two most common approaches to describing the change in the grain structure in the processes of thermomechanical processing of metals and alloys: continual (in most cases, single-level) and multilevel, based on the introduction of internal variables and physical theories. This review is devoted to the consideration of publications focused on the first of these approaches. Until now, the most common are macrophenomenological continuum models based on the analysis of experimental data conducted both in laboratories on macrosamples and in real production conditions. Models of this class are usually formulated in the form of operator relations over field quantities, they are relatively easy to implement due to their easy “embedding” into widely used commercial software packages, but they require significant costs for experiments to identify models, they are characterized by a low degree of versatility. Continuous theories are relatively less common, but still often used. These theories are based on the description of physical mechanisms and the evolution of the structure of metals and alloys in terms of continuum variables.