Influence of precipitation on recrystallization and texture development in an iron-1.2% copper alloy

The development of preferred orientation has been studied for a wide range of annealing conditions which included single and two-stage treatments as well as continuous heating at various rates. The most strongly pronounced textures are formed after high rolling reductions and in annealing treatments which allow precipitation of copper to occur in the cold-worked structure prior to recrystallization. Fine-scale precipitation which can be produced by 'light' preliminary annealing treatments results in a coarse-grained condition after recrystallization with a high value of the texture ratio I//2//2//2/I//2//0//0. The same effect may be achieved by heating at an optimum rate of about 10 K min** minus **1. Prolonged low-tempearture annealing or very slow heating rates lead to a fine-grained recrystallized state.