Evolution of twins and substructures during low strain rate hot deformation and contribution to dynamic recrystallization in alloy 617B

Substructure and twin boundary evolution of alloy 617B during dynamic recrystallization (DRX) was investigated by optical microscope, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) technique. Simulated compression tests were carried out at different true strains in the temperature range of 1120-1210 °C with a strain rate of 0.001 s−1. The results show that discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) featured by original grain boundary bulging is the dominant nucleation mechanism for alloy 617B. The progressive subgrain rotation, which is a characterization of continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) can be detected at the early stage of hot deformation at lower temperature, which can just be considered as an assistant mechanism. The evolution of substructure and twin boundaries have a significant effect on DRX process of alloy 617B. Twinning formation can active the DRX process by accelerating original grain boundary bulging and separation of bulging grain boundaries. The formation of twin steps resulting from twin slipping provide additional DRX nucleation locations. The effort of twins gets weaker with the increase of temperature as the DRX grain growth process associated with grain boundary area reduction gradually becomes a preferential mechanism for energy minimization. Different from previous study, the fraction of twin boundaries decrease with the increase of temperature, which can be attributed to the twin boundary accelerated prior grain growth process. Such process also results in the serious bulging of grain boundaries into adjacent grains.