A simple model for dynamic recrystallization during severe plastic deformation

During severe plastic deformation at elevated temperature dynamic recrystallization governs the microstructural evolution in natural geological processes as well as in industrial processing of metals, e.g. during equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE). Microstructure changes into almost dislocation-free grains of an average diameter of a few hundred nanometers yielding materials with excellent room-temperature strength. In this paper, we present a thermodynamically consistent model for the dynamic recrystallization during severe plastic deformation which provides explicit evolution equations for grain size and dislocation density.