Cube texture in hot-rolled aluminum alloy 1050 (AA1050) - nucleation and growth behavior

The microstructure and texture evolution at different annealing temperatures were analyzed in a hot-rolled commercial purity aluminum alloy from two-dimensional electron backscattered diffraction scans. The newly recrystallized grains were found to cluster together. Recrystallized grains have cube, {001}< 100 >, as the dominant texture component at all annealing temperatures. Nucleation and growth behavior of the recrystallized cube grains was observed by measuring the variations in first nearest neighbor boundary pixels of these grains. The texture of nearest neighbor pixels at low fraction recrystallized represents the nucleation environment of newly recrystallized grains. Growth rates of the recrystallized grains were estimated from the variation in grain size with time at different annealing temperatures. Analysis of nucleation and growth behavior of the recrystallized cube grains reveals a significant nucleation advantage at all annealing temperatures: a decreasing growth advantage is observed as the annealing temperature is increased. Further analysis of the nucleation environment of the recrystallizing cube grains also revealed that among the main texture components of deformed grains (S, brass and copper), they grow more rapidly into the S component than into the copper or brass components. This trend persists throughout recrystallization such that the brass component is the slowest to recrystallize. In terms of the oriented nucleation (ON) and oriented growth (OG) theories, ON has a greater impact on the development of recrystallization texture than OG. (C) 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.