The preferential growth and related textural evolution during static recrystallization in a cold-rolled Mg–Zn–Gd alloy

The grain growth process plays an important role in the texture formation in magnesium alloys. The microstructural and micro-textural evolution of a cold-rolled Mg–Zn–Gd alloy during annealing at 350 °C for 60–190 min were tracked by quasi-in-situ electron backscatter diffraction method. The results show that grain growth takes place gradually with the annealing time increasing. Moreover, the TD-split texture maintains the texture type but alters in three aspects - the increased tilting angle, the decreased pole intensity and the widened distribution of high-intensity area. Grains with their c-axis tilting 45–70° from normal direction show preferential growth which is closely associated with the texture changes. The original grain size advantage is one of the important factors leading to the growth advantage, some grain boundaries, such as 50–60° [1¯21¯0], 50–60° [2¯75¯0], 60–70° [1¯21¯0] (∑18b), and 70–80° [101¯0] (∑10) are also considered to be related to this preferential growth.