Effect of forming conditions on the softening behavior in coarse grained structures

► Unexpected warm forming behavior of coarse grained pure Ni. ► Coarsening in starting microstructure leads to a higher flow stress and higher hardening rate. ► Grain boundary movement is strongly dependent on the initial grain size. ► Discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) is retarded by coarsening of initial grain size. ► DDRX generates a metastable grain size finer than the steady state grain size.