The effect of coarse non-deformable particles on the deformation and static recrystallization of aluminium alloys

Abstract The phenomenon of particle-stimulated nucleation (PSN) during recrystallization of commercial aluminium alloys has been widely investigated both from a ;scientific viewpoint and from the industrial perspective. The technological impact of this phenomenon is the finding that, depending upon the thermomechanical processing conditions, the occurrence of PSN may strengthen or weaken the deformation texture during recrystallization, which may or may not be desirable ;for a specific application of the final product. From a scientific standpoint, the mechanics of formation of localized deformation zones in the vicinity of the hard particles and the development of deformation substructures within the ;deformation zone that eventually turn into a recrystallized nucleus are still not ;completely understood. This paper describes the application of a coupled finite-element–Monte Carlo technique to study the phenomenon of PSN during recrystallization of aluminium and the subsequent growth of the nuclei. The deformation and recrystallization textures arising from initial microstructures with and without hard particles are compared to elucidate the particle effect on texture. The simulations have been applied to single crystals, bicrystals and a tricrystal of aluminium of specific crystallographic orientations with and without the hard particles at specific locations such as the grain interior, grain boundary and triple line. The simulation results are compared with existing experimental data on the deformation and recrystallization of particle-containing aluminium alloys. Acknowledgements Research sponsored by the Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, US Department of Energy, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. The authors would like to thank Drs Amit Goyal and Phani Nukala for a critical review of the manuscript. Notes The submitted manuscript has been authored by a contractor of the US Government under contract ;DE-AC05-00OR22725. Accordingly, the US Government retains a non-exclusive royalty-free licence to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. In our previous work (Sarma et al. Citation1998) we have calculated stored energy as proportional to τ2. However, this does not provide the correct ratio of the stored energies between the cube and S orientations in a deformed cube–S bicrystal (Radhakrishnan and Sarma Citation2004).