Microstructure and texture change in equal channel angular pressed 6061 aluminum sheet by static annealing

A novel equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) based process called dissimilar channel angular pressing (DCAP) was conducted to 6061 aluminum. The samples after DCAP were annealed isochronally up to 330°C, and the microstructural change and the texture evolution were investigated by means of TEM and three-dimensional orientation distribution functions (ODFs), which were determined by X-ray diffraction. The results show that the ultrafine grains induced by DCAP are quite stable, remaining in size of 0.6 μm up to the annealing temperature of 330°C. The macrotexture after annealing is characterized by two components: {111}<110> component and a very sharp rotated cube texture component in place of the cube component, which generally appears to be the dominant component in rolling deformation. The occurrence of preferential growth of rotated cube grains may give rise to the strong intensity of rotated cube orientation in recrystallized texture.