Effect of equal channel angular pressing on the thermal-annealing-induced microstructure and texture evolution of cold-rolled copper

The effect of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) on the recrystallization-induced microstructure and texture evolution of cold-rolled (CR) pure copper was investigated. Compared with CR copper, ECAP+CR copper had finer recrystallized grains because the large stored energy introduced by ECAP led to a higher nucleation rate for the recrystallization. While preferred nucleation with the formation of nucleation site bands and preferred growth along the rolling direction occurred in CR copper, much more uniform nucleation and equiaxed growth of recrystallized grains occurred in ECAP+CR copper. In contrast to the annealed CR copper in which a weak retained rolling texture was observed, the annealed ECAP+CR copper presented a strong cube texture after recrystallization. Mechanisms of the texture evolution are also discussed.