The migration of high angle grain boundaries during recrystallization

When plastically deformed metallic materials are annealed, new strain free grains emerge from the microstructure and grow by means of grain boundary migration until the deformation microstructure is eliminated. This process is called recrystallization. In this paper the various methods by which grain boundary migration rates are measured stereologically in order to characterize the growth process are described and compared using illustrations from recrystallization experiments on commercial AA1050 aluminum. It seems abundantly clear that during recrystallization of cold-deformed materials, isothermal grain boundary migration rates decrease with time and reasons for such a decrease are discussed. A new methodology whereby migration rates of the individual recrystallization texture components may be quantified by combining stereology and orientation imaging by the electron back scattered pattern analysis is outlined. By illustration, recent experiments on aluminum and copper are summarized documenting the slight growth rate advantage the cube texture component (001)[100] possesses during recrystallization of cold rolled material. The role of orientation pinning effects on grain boundary migration is described briefly. It appears that such pinning effects allow recrystallized grains emerging from the weaker deformation texture components to enjoy an average growth rate advantage over those emerging from the stronger deformation texture components.