Annealing textures of severely cold and warm-rolled Al-2.5 wt.%Mg alloy

The evolution of recrystallization texture was investigated in severely deformed Al-2.5 wt.%Mg alloy. For this purpose the alloy was cold and warm-rolled to 97% reduction in thickness at room temperature and 473 K (200 degrees C), respectively, using a combination of accumulative roll bonding and conventional rolling. The deformed materials were annealed at temperatures ranging between 473 K (200 degrees C) and 673 K (400 degrees C). The deformed materials showed fine lamellar structure and strong copper type texture. However, the warm-rolled material showed much stronger cube texture ({1 0 0}< 001 >) after different annealing treatments. Orientations of early recrystallized grains in partially recrystallized materials obtained after annealing for short duration revealed strong tendency for preferential nucleation of cube grains in warm-rolled as compared to the cold-rolled material. The observed preferential nucleation of cube oriented grains in warm-rolled material was attributed to more recovered structure of cube oriented grains. In contrast, strong pinning of dislocations by solute Mg atoms during cold-rolling at room temperature inhibited the recovery of cube grains and greatly diminished their preferential nucleation. The cube component was significantly strengthened with increasing annealing temperature in both cold and warm-rolled materials due to the growth of the cube grains. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.