Numerous investigations have demonstrated that intense plastic deformation is an attractive procedure for producing an ultrafine grain size in metallic materials. Torsional deformation under high pressure and equal-channel angular extrusion are two techniques that can produce microstructures with grain sizes in the submicrometer and nanometer range. Materials with these microstructures have many attractive properties. The objective of the present work is to examine the microstructure evolution during severe plastic deformation of a 2219 aluminum alloy. Specific attention is given to the mechanism of ultrafine grain formation as a result of severe plastic deformation.