Evolution of microstructure and mechanical properties of steel in the course of pressing–drawing

The combined continuous pressing–drawing process is proposed after a comprehensive analysis of available plastic structure-forming techniques taking into account the promising trends in their development. This combination of severe plastic deformation in equal-channel step die and drawing allows one to obtain a wire of desired size and shape in the cross section with an ultrafine-grained structure after a few deformation cycles. It also enables initial workpieces of any length to be processed and, therefore, allows one to obtain finished products up to several tens of meters in length. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of new combined pressing–drawing technique of plastic deformation on the structure and mechanical properties of the steel. These studies have shown that the proposed deformation technique has a significant advantage of the techniques currently used to manufacture a steel wire.