Effect of Severe Cold Rolling and Annealing on the Development of Texture, Microstructure and Grain Boundary Character Distribution in an Interstitial Free (IF) Steel

Abstract

A systematic study on the evolution of microstructure, texture and grain boundary character distribution has been carried out for an industrially produced interstitial free (IF) steel after cold rolling by 90 and 98% and also after recrystallization anneal. The deformation microstructure shows refinement of the cell structure along with frequent formation of strain free nano-sized to sub-micron grains after severe cold rolling. Increase in the amount of cold rolling leads to a rise in the density of high angle grain boundaries and a corresponding sharpening of the deformation texture. Annealing of the severely cold rolled material also leads to the formation of submicron to ultra-fine grains. Higher amount of cold rolling sharpens the γ fibre intensity. Selective growth during annealing may take place in the more heavily cold rolled (98%) material. The texture, microstructure and grain boundary character distribution appear to be intimately related.