Grain growth during annealing of cryogenically-rolled Cu-30Zn brass

The grain-growth behavior of cryogenically-rolled Cu-30Zn brass during isothermal annealing at 900 °C was examined. The observed microstructure coarsening was interpreted in terms of normal grain growth with a grain-growth exponent of ∼4. The relatively slow grain-growth kinetics was attributed to the formation of precipitates at the grain boundaries and the interaction of texture and grain growth. The development of a moderate-strength {110} α fiber texture (∼4 times random) as well as the presence of a limited number of twin variants within the grains suggested the occurrence of variant selection during annealing.