In the present study, the effect of the strain path on microstructure and mechanical properties of a commercially pure copper strifabricated via accumulative roll bonding (ARB) process was investigated. The copper strips were produced (up to 8 cycles) by direct ARB process (route A) and also ARB with rotation angle 90° anti-clockwise ( route B C ), (route B A ) and 180° (route C). To conduct this study, the strips with a thickness of 1 mm and dimension of 5 × 15 cm were used for direct and 180° rolled and dimension of 4 × 5 cm was used for rotations of 90 degrees. . The bonding between the strips during the ARB process with different routes was evaluated using optical microscopy. The results indicated that in all routes the bonding strength was improved with increasing the number of cycles. It was also found that the interface bonding in the routes B C , B A and C seemed to have higher quality than that of route A. In addition, microstructural characterizations were analyzed by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique. The EBSD images showed a band-like structure ARB process with routes A and C, while the specimens produced with routes B C and B A developed relatively equiaxed, ultrafine grains. Tension and hardness tests were performed on the produced sheets for evaluating their mechanical properties. The tensile strength and hardness values of the ARB processed copper strips with different routes increased about almost twice than that of the initial values. It was also found that the tensile strength and hardness values of the ARB processed specimens with routes A and C were higher than that of ones for routes B C and B A . In order to clarify the failure mode, fracture surfaces after tensile test were studied by scanning electron microscopy. Fracture surfaces observations showed that failure mode in the ARB processed copper with different routes was "shear ductile rupture" with small elongated dimple. Key words : Accumulative roll bonding, Strain path, Mechanical properties, Fracture surfaces, microstructure
