Mechanical properties, microstructure and micro-texture evolution for 1050AA deformed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) and post ECAP plane strain compression using two loading schemes

Electron back scattered diffraction (EBSD) was used to document the microstructure and microtexture developed due to cross deformation of commercial purity 1050 aluminum alloy. The material was first deformed in an equal channel angular pressing die (ECAP) to one up to four passes, via route Bc and then deformed in plane strain compression (PSC), in two different directions, to two axial true plastic strain values of 0.5 and 1.0. The study provides a documentation of the evolution of microstructure parameters namely; cell size, average misorientation angle, fraction of submicron cell size and fraction of high angle grain boundaries. These microstructure parameters were investigated on the plane normal to the loading direction in PSC (plane constituted by the rolling and transverse directions). These microstructure parameters were compared to those achieved due to the ECAP process only. The ideal rolling texture orientations are depicted and crystal orientation maps were generated. The spatial distribution of grains having these orientations are revealed through these maps. The fraction of the main texture components for a 15° spread around the specified orientations was experimentally calculated and a quantitative idea on the evolution of microtexture was also presented. Deformation path change was shown to be an effective tool for manipulating texture as well as microstructure.