Rotary swaging is a promising technique for the fabrication of clad Cu/Al composites. Residual stresses appearing during the processing of a special arrangement of Al filaments within the Cu matrix and the influence of the bar reversal between the passes were studied by (i) neutron diffraction using a novel evaluation procedure for pseudo-strain correction and (ii) a finite element method simulation. The initial study of the stress differences in the Cu phase allowed us to infer that the stresses around the central Al filament are hydrostatic when the sample is reversed during the passes. This fact enabled the calculation of the stress-free reference and, consequently, the analysis of the hydrostatic and deviatoric components. Finally, the stresses with the von Mises relation were calculated. Hydrostatic stresses (far from the filaments) and axial deviatoric stresses are zero or compressive for both reversed and non-reversed samples. The reversal of the bar direction slightly changes the overall state within the region of high density of Al filaments, where hydrostatic stresses tend to be tensile, but it seems to be advantageous for avoiding plastification in the regions without Al wires. The finite element analysis revealed the presence of shear stresses; nevertheless, stresses calculated with the von Mises relation show similar trends in the simulation and in the neutron measurements. Microstresses are suggested as a possible reason for the large width of the neutron diffraction peak in the measurement of the radial direction.
Keywords: aluminum; composite; copper; finite element simulation; neutron diffraction; residual stress; rotary swaging; severe plastic deformation; von Mises.