Effect of intermediate annealing on texture evolution and plastic anisotropy in an Al-Mg autobody alloy

The effect of intermediate annealing (IA) on texture evolution and plastic anisotropy of an Al-Mg autobody sheet was investigated. The formation of annealing textures after two kinds of final heat treatments was discussed with the aid of microstructural characterization. The results showed that the IA treatment had obvious influences on the final annealing texture as well as the resulting plastic anisotropy. It led to relatively lower recrystallization extent and stronger retained rolling orientations in the sheets after final heat treatment. The final annealing textures were very weak due to the dominant influence of particle stimulated nucleation. The other orientations occurring can either be attributed to genuine recrystallization or to recrystallization in situ. As a result of good suppression of the cube and rotated cube orientations, a good combination of normal anisotropy and planar anisotropy was achieved in the sample with IA and after O treatment.