2010 Volume 50 Issue 11 Pages 1653-1659
The effect of simple shear deformation by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) for one pass on the texture and ridging of ferritic stainless steel sheets with 16 mass% chromium has been investigated. Hot rolled and annealed sheets of 4 mm thickness were ECA-pressed for one pass, prior to cold rolling and final annealing. It was found that grains were subdivided by grain-scale heterogeneous plastic deformation, namely, deformation bands, during simple shear by ECAP. Deformation bands appear to contribute to the fragmenting layered structure after cold rolling and facilitate recrystallization of the so-called colonies having {hkl}‹110› texture, which are otherwise difficult to recrystallize in final annealing. In other words, strain energy can be stored more effectively by combining simple shear and cold rolling than by cold rolling alone. Recrystallization occurred at a much lower temperature in the process including ECAP than in a conven-tional cold-rolling only process, replacing colonized {hkl}‹110› grains with more favorable {111}‹hkl› grains, thus enhancing its formability and reducing ridging.