Effect of deformation temperature on subsequent recrystallization characteristics of commercial purity titanium (CP-Ti) was investigated using EBSD and transmission electron microscopy. CP-Ti plates were rolled to at various temperatures between 25°C and 600°C to achieve 60% reduction, and were subsequently annealed at 600°C for various time periods. Increase in rolling temperature resulted in more refined microstructures, which could be attributed to coactivation of secondary slip systems such as basal <a> slip or pyramidal <c+a> slip in addition to prism <a> slip. During subsequent annealing, a large number of recrystallization nuclei formed in the warm-worked (below 450°C) CP-Ti while nucleation of recrystallization was slower for coldrolled one. This led to the faster recrystallization kinetics and a finer microstructure in asrecrystallized state for warm-worked CP-Ti. Meanwhile, the rate of recrystallization in CP-Ti rolled at 600°C was significantly retarded because a good portion of strain energy stored in deformed matrix was released by dynamic recovery. In the present work, we show that the widely accepted explanation for the influence of the deformation temperature on the recrystallization characteristics, i.e., increase of the deformation temperature retards the recrystallization process, is not always true for the hcp metals since deformation at elevated temperature activates secondary slip systems, providing more sites for nucleation of recrystallization.
