Effects of annealing temperature on the microstructure and mechanical properties through thickness of a Cu-3.0Ni- 0.7Si alloy processed by differential speed rolling are investigated in detail. The copper alloy with a thickness of 3 mm is rolled to a 50 % reduction at ambient temperature without lubricant and subsequently annealed for 0.5 h at 200-900 oC. The microstructure of the copper alloy after annealing is different in the thickness direction depending on the amount of the shear and compressive strain introduced by the rolling; the recrystallization occurs first in the upper roll side and center regions which are largely shear-deformed. The complete recrystallization occurs at an annealing temperature of 800 oC. The grain size after the complete recrystallization is finer than that of the conventional rolling. The hardness distribution of the specimens annealed at 500-700 oC is not uniform in the thickness direction due to partial recrystallization. This ununiformity of hardness corresponds well to the amount of shear strain in the thickness direction. The average hardness and ultimate tensile strength has the maximum values of 250 Hv and 450 Mpa, respectively, in the specimen annealed at 400 oC. It is considered that the complex mode of strain introduced by rolling directly affects the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the annealed specimens.

Effects of conventional rolling(CR) and differential speed rolling(DSR) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Cu-Ni-Si alloy were investigated in detail. The copper alloy with thickness of 3 mm was rolled to 50 % reduction at ambient temperature without lubricant with a differential speed ratio of 2:1. The conventional rolling in which the rolling speed of upper and lower rolls is identical was performed under identical rolling conditions. The shear strain introduced by the CR showed positive values at positions of upper roll side and negative values at positions of lower roll side. However, it showed zero or positive values at all positions for the samples rolled by the DSR. The microstrucure and texture development of the as-rolled copper alloy did not show any significant difference between CR and DSR. The tensile strength of the DSR processed specimen was larger than that of the CR processed specimen. The effects of rolling methods on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the as-rolled copper alloy are discussed in terms of the shear strain.

We evaluated the developed microstructures and mechanical properties of a severely plastically deformed Ni-30Cr alloy. Normal rolling and differential speed rolling were used as deformation processes, and the thicknesses of the specimens were reduced to 68 % of the original thickness after holding at 700 oC for 10 min and annealing at 700 oC for 40 min to obtain a fully recrystallized microstructure. Electron backscattering diffraction was used to analyze the characteristic distribution of the grain boundaries on the deformed and annealed specimens. Differential speed rolling was more effective for refining grains in comparison with normal rolling. The grain size was refined from 33 mm in the initial material to 8.1 mm with normal rolling and 5.5 mm with differential speed rolling. The more refined grain in the differential-speed-rolled material directly resulted in increases in the yield and tensile strengths by 68 % and 9.0%, respectively, compared to normal rolling. We systematically explain the relationship between the grain refinement and mechanical properties through a plastically deformed Ni-30Cr alloy based on the development of a deformation texture. The results of our study show that the DSR process is very effective when used to enhance the mechanical properties of a material through grain refinement.

A two-pass differential speed rolling(DSR) was applied to a deoxidized low-phosphorous copper alloy sheet in order to form a homogeneous microstructure. Copper alloy with a thickness of 3 mm was rolled to 75 % reduction by two-pass rolling at 150˚C without lubrication at a differential speed ratio of 2.0:1. In order to introduce uniform shear strain into the copper alloy sheet, the second rolling was performed after turning the sample by 180˚ on the transverse direction axis. Conventional rolling(CR), in which the rotating speeds of the upper roll and lower roll are identical to each other, was also performed by two-pass rolling under a total rolling reduction of 75 %, for comparison. The shear strain introduced by the conventional rolling showed positive values at positions of the upper roll side and negative values at positions of the lower roll side. However, samples processed by the DSR showed zero or positive values at all positions. 100//ND texture was primarily developed near the surface and center of thickness for the CR, while 110//ND texture was primarily developed for the DSR. The difference in misorientation distribution of grain boundary between the upper roll side surface and center regions was very small in the CR, while it was large in the DSR. The grain size was smallest in the upper roll side region for both the CR and the DSR. The hardness showed homogeneous distribution in the thickness direction in both CR and DSR. The average hardness was larger in CR than in DSR.

The microstructure and mechanical properties of a copper alloy sheet processed by differential speed rolling (DSR) were investigated in detail. A copper alloy with thickness of 3 mm was rolled to a 50% reduction at ambient temperature without lubrication and with a differential speed ratio of 2.0:1. For comparison, conventional rolling (CR), in which the rolling speeds of the upper and lower rolls is 2.0 m/min, was also performed under the same rolling conditions. The shear strain of the sample processed by CR showed positive values at the positions of the upper roll side and negative values at the positions of the lower roll side. On the other hand, the sample processed by the DSR showed zero or positive shear strain values at all positions. However, the microstructure and mechanical properties of the as-rolled copper alloys did not show such significant differences between the CR and the DSR. The samples rolled by the CR and the DSR exhibited a typical deformation structure. In addition, the DSR processed samples showed a typical rolling texture in which 112<111>, 011<211> and 123<634> components were developed at all positions. Therefore, it is concluded that the DSR was very effective for the introduction of a uniform microstructure throughout the thickness of the copper alloy.

The effects of conventional rolling (CR) and differential speed rolling (DSR) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of a copper alloy sheet were investigated in detail. A copper alloy with thickness of 3 mm was rolled to a 50% reduction at ambient temperature without lubrication with a differential speed ratio of 2:1; sample was then annealed for 0.5h at various temperatures from 100 to 800˚C. Conventional rolling, in which the rolling speed of the upper and lower rolls is identical, was performed under the same rolling conditions. The shear strain introduced by the CR showed positive values at positions on the upper roll side and negative values at positions on the lower roll side. However, the shear strain showed a zero or positive value at all positions for the samples rolled by the DSR. The microstrucure and mechanical properties of the as-rolled copper alloy did not show very significant differences between the CR and DSR for the microstructure and mechanical properties. However, those properties showed very significant differences in the case of the annealed samples. The effects of rolling method on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the as-rolled and subsequently annealed materials are discussed in terms of the shear strain.