Quantitative Measurement of the Development of Recrystallization Texture in OFE Copper

High purity OFE copper samples, cold rolled 58, 73 and 90%, were studied at different fractions recrystallized to follow the change of texture, the associated kinetics, release of stored energy, growth rates and microstructures. Higher strains led to a stronger copper deformation component and a stronger cube recrystallization component. The strength of the cube texture correlated strongly with the frequency of cube nuclei at the early stage of recrystallization for the 73 and 90% reductions. The kinetics had low Avrami exponents of 1.1, 1.2 and 1.8 respectively for the 3 rolling reductions. Average growth rates, G, decreased linearly with fraction recrystallized. However, unlike the study by Hutchinson et al., here the rate of stored energy release was constant with fraction recrystallized.