Twinning during recrystallization cooling in α-Zr alloy

Recently, twinning induced by intergranular thermal residual stresses (ITRSs) has been first reported in a Zr alloy after β→α furnace cooling. To further explore this kind of twinning behavior, microstructures and textures of the Zr alloy during α annealing between 650 and 750 °C after β quenching were investigated in the present work, by use of X-ray diffraction, electron backscatter diffraction and electron channeling contrast imaging techniques. Results indicate that the ITRS-induced twins could also occur during cooling after α-recrystallization annealing in the Zr alloy, closely related to both the grain size and the texture. When the recrystallization texture is relatively random, high tensile ITRSs up to ~200 MPa along c-axis could be accumulated. Tensile twins can only be induced by the tensile ITRS in the nearly texture-free Zr specimen with an average grain size larger than ~20 μm.