Texture Control in Steel and Aluminium Alloys by Rolling and Recrystallization in Non-Conventional Sheet Manufacturing

The sheet manufacturing process, which involves various solid-state transformations such as phase transformations, plastic deformation and thermally activated recovery processes, determines the texture of steel and aluminium sheet. The conventional process of flat rolling and annealing only offers limited degrees of freedom to modify the texture of the final product. After annealing a {111} recrystallization fibre in BCC alloys and a cube dominated recrystallization texture in FCC metals is commonly obtained. Many applications, however, require other texture components than the ones achievable by conventional processing. In the present paper it is shown that by asymmetric rolling of a Si-alloyed ultra-low carbon steel a texture can be obtained with increased intensity on the {001} fibre, which is of interest for magnetic applications. Also in aluminium alloys the strong cube annealing texture can be drastically modified by the process of asymmetric rolling. It is argued that by observing the proper rolling and annealing conditions a recrystallization texture with improved normal and planar anisotropy of the mechanical properties may be produced.