An overview on severe plastic deformation: research status, techniques classification, microstructure evolution, and applications.

The present overview gives a new approach toward developments and recent achievements in severe plastic deformation. The review focuses on several subjects. First, an outline of SPD research status in the world is presented by literature analysis based on the total number of publications, citations, and the contribution of the top-ranked countries. Second, the mechanisms of grain refinement and grain growth during SPD processing are discussed by means of the latest concepts. Third, all SPD methods invented so far are classified based on a new approach. Up to now, the growing tendency of researchers to introduce new SPD techniques results in a large number of SPD methods which can be considered as new or modified techniques or a combination of previous ones. Such a reference can help to prevent the future duplication to introduce the SPD processes, which are technically similar. At the end, the practical applications of ultrafine/nanostructured materials and industrial commercialization of SPD methods are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]