Recrystallization Texture of Heavily Cold Rolled Polycrystalline Nickel Sheets with and without Strong Starting Cube Texture

Abstract

The evolution of texture is studied in high purity (~99.7%) nickel sheets with widely different starting cube texture ({001}) intensities following heavy cold rolling and annealing. For this purpose two nickel sheets with strong and weak starting recrystallization cube texture (SSCT and WSCT, respectively) prepared by Accumulative Roll Bonding and conventional rolling, respectively, followed by annealing are used as the starting materials for subsequent processing. These sheets are cold rolled to 90% reduction in thickness and annealed at different temperatures. Profuse cube oriented bands could be identified in the SSCT nickel sheet after 90% cold rolling as opposed to rather insignificant presence of cube regions in the WSCT nickel sheet. However, the WSCT nickel sheets consistently show stronger cube texture after annealing treatments as compared to the SSCT material. The failure to observe recrystallization cube texture in SSCT is attributed to the inhibited nucleation of cube grains owing to the unfavorable misorientation environment surrounding cube regions in the deformed matrix.