Recovery, Recrystallization & Grain Growth

Gourahari Behera
Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering (MME)
Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla-768018
E-mail : ghbehera_mme@[Link]

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 Introduction
Plastic deformation in the temperature range (0.3 – 0.5) Tm → COLD WORK
❑ Point defects and dislocations have strain energy associated with them
❑ (1 -10) % of the energy expended in plastic deformation is stored in the form of
strain energy (in these defects) → The material becomes battery of energy..!
❑ The cold worked material is in a micro structurally metastable state.
❑ Depending on the severity of the cold work the dislocation density can increase 4-6
orders of magnitude more. The material becomes stronger, but less ductile.
❑ The cold worked material is stronger (harder), but is brittle.
❑ Heating the material (typically below 0.5Tm) is and holding for sufficient time is a
heat treatment process called annealing.
❑ Depending on the temperature of annealing processes like Recovery at lower
temperatures) or Recrystallization (at higher temperatures) may take place. During
these processes the material tends to go from a micro structurally metastable state
to a lower energy state (towards a stable state).
❑ Further ‘annealing’ of the recrystallized material can lead to grain growth.
Annealed material Stronger material
⎯⎯ ⎯⎯→
Cold work 2
 dislocation ~ (106 − 109 )  dislocation ~ (1012 − 1014 )
 Introduction

↑ point defect density

Material tends to lose
Cold work Anneal
the stored strain energy
↑ dislocation density

Increase in strength Softening of the material

of the material

❑ During cold work the point defect density (vacancies, self interstitials…) and dislocation
density increase. Typical cold working techniques are rolling, forging, extrusion etc.
❑ Cold working is typically done on ductile metals (e.g. Al, Cu, Ni)

Low temperature
Recovery

Cold work Anneal

Recrystallization 3
High temperature
 Overview of processes taking place during annealing

Driving force is free energy stored in point defects

Cold work Anneal Recovery
and dislocations

Driving force is free energy stored in dislocations Recrystallization

Driving force is free energy stored in grain boundaries Grain growth

Cold work

↑ Strength ↑ Hardness ↑ Electrical resistance ↓ Ductility

Changes occur to almost all physical and mechanical properties 4

 Recovery
❑ Recovery takes place at low temperatures of annealing
❑ “Apparently no change in microstructure”
❑ Excess point defects created during Cold work are absorbed:
► at surface or grain boundaries RECOVERY
► by dislocation climb
❑ Random dislocations of opposite sign come together and annihilate each other
❑ Dislocations of same sign arrange into low energy configurations:
► Edge → Tilt boundaries
► Screw → Twist boundaries
➔ POLYGONIZATION
❑ Overall reduction in dislocation density is small
❑ At the early stage of annealing of cold formed metals, external thermal energy permits the
dislocations to move and form the boundaries of a polygonized subgrain structure while the
dislocation density stays almost unchanged. This process also removes the residual stresses
formed due to cold working significant. The recovering of physical and mechanical
properties varies with the temperature and time.

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 POLYGONIZATION
Bent crystal

Low angle grain boundaries

POLYGONIZATION

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 Recrystallization

❑ Trecrystallization  (0.3 – 0.5) Tm

❑ “Nucleation” and growth of new, strain free crystals
❑ Nucleation of new grains in the usual sense may not be present and grain boundary
migrates into a region of higher dislocation density
❑ G (recrystallization) = G (deformed material) – G (undeformed material)
❑ TRecrystallization is the temperature at which 50 % of the material recrystallizes in 1
hour

Region of lower
Region of higher dislocation density
dislocation density

Direction of grain
boundary migration
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 Recrystallization

❑ Deformation ↑  recrystallization temperature (Trecrystallization) ↓

❑ Initial grain size ↓  recrystallization temperature ↓
❑ High cold work + low initial grain size  finer recrystallized grains
❑ ↑ cold work temperature  lower strain energy stored
 ↑ recrystallization temperature
❑ Rate of recrystallization = exponential function of temperature
❑ Trecrystallization = strong function of the purity of the material
Trecrystallization (very pure materials) ~ 0.3 Tm
Trecrystallization (impure) ~ (0.5 – 0.6) Tm

► Trecrystallization (99.999% pure Al) ~ 75oC

Trecrystallization (commercial purity) ~ 275oC
❑ The impurity atoms segregate to the grain boundary and retard their motion →
Solute drag (can be used to retain strength of materials at high temperatures)
❑ Second phase particles also pin down the grain boundary during its migration 8
 Hot Work and Cold Work

Often the range is further subdivided into Hot, Cold and Warm working as in the figure

❑ Hot Work  Plastic deformation above TRecrystallization

❑ Cold Work  Plastic deformation below TRecrystallization
Hot Work

− 0.9 Tm
❑ When a metal is hot worked. The conditions of deformation are
− 0.8 Tm such that the sample is soft and ductile. The effects of strain
− 0.7 Tm hardening are negated by dynamic and static processes (which keep
the sample ductile)
− 0.6 Tm ❑ The lower limit of temperature for hot working is taken as 0.6 Tm
Warm − 0.5 Tm
Working − 0.4 Tm Recrystallization temperature (~ 0.4 Tm)
− 0.3 Tm
Cold Work

− 0.2 Tm ❑ The effects of strain hardening is not negated. Recovery

mechanisms involve mainly motion of point defects.
− 0.1 Tm
❑ Upper limit ►0.3 Tm

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 Grain growth
❑ The interfaces in a material cost the system energy: the excess free energy associated with
the interfaces is the interfacial free energy.
❑ Grain boundaries are the interfaces between two crystallites which are differently oriented in
space; the excess free energy associated with the grain boundary is the grain boundary
energy.
❑ The grain boundary energy acts as the driving force for the movement of grain boundaries.
Hence, if a recrystallised material is further annealed, then grains growth takes place; bigger
grains grow at the cost of smaller ones. This process is known as grain growth.
❑ Since the driving force for grain growth is the interfacial energy, and since the excess energy
associated with a system due to interfaces is related to the curvature of the interface, the grain
growth is curvature driven. In Figure we shown the direction of movement of grain
boundaries and their relationship to curvature (in 2D systems).

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Curvature driven growth of grains (in 2D)
 Grain growth
❑ It is the velocity of the interface, then    where κ is the curvature  1  . More specifically
 
2 r
 =M
r
❑ where M is the mobility, and ϒ is the grain boundary energy. In terms of the diameter (D) of
the grains, dD 4M
=
dt D
❑ The solution to this equation is given by
D 2 = D02 + 4Mt
❑ where D0 is the mean size of the grain at time t = 0 and D is the mean diameter of the grains
in the system.
❑ Experimentally, it is found that the grain size as a function of time does follow an expression
of the type D = Kt n ,where K is a temperature dependent proportionality constant and n is
a number much less than 0.5. The deviation of the exponent from 0.5 is not yet clearly
understood.

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 Grain growth
❑ Due to the differences in the driving forces for
recrystallisation and grain growth, as shown in
Figure the movement of the interface in these two
cases are different in character; recrystallisation,
as long as the growing grain is free of strain and
eats into the strained grain, will proceed
irrespective of the curvature of the grain;
however, during grain growth, the movement of
the interface is dependent on the curvature of the
grain.
❑ During grain growth, the direction of movement
of the grain boundary is completely decided by
curvature. On the other hand, during
recrystallisation it is decided by the strains in the
grains; the strained one is eaten up by the strain
free crystal; hence, the growth can sometimes be
such that the boundary moves away from its
centre of curvature.

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 Grain growth

❑ Large grains have lower free energy than small grains. This is associated with the
reduction of the amount of grain boundary.
❑ Therefore, under ideal conditions, the lower energy state for a metal would be as a single
crystal. This is driving force for grain growth.
❑ Opposing this force is the rigidity of the lattice. As the temperature increases, the
rigidity of the lattice decreases and the rate of grain growth is more rapid.
❑ At any given temperature there is a maximum grain size at which these two effects are in
equilibrium

↓ Heating Time↓

Grain size →
↓ Degree of prior deformation ↑

Grain growth ↓ Time at temperature↑

↓ Annealing temperature↓
Temperature →
↓ Insoluble impurities↑ 13
Effect of temperature on recrystallized grain size
 Recovery Recrystallization Graingrowth

Electical conductivity
Internal stress
Ductility

Tensile strength

Cold work Recovery Recrystallization Grain growth

Change of properties with increased annealing temperature of a cold

worked sample. Note that there are changes in properties beyond
recrystallisation temperatures too due to grain growth.

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