Abstract
The present paper reports new experimental work to evaluate two aspects of thermomechanical treatment of α brass: the effect on the grain boundary population of strain annealing iterations rather than single stage treatments, and the accompanying effect on mechanical properties, particularly ductility. Whereas the first stage of a two stage strain–annealing schedule improved ductility, during the second stage there was a further improvement which was more than expected from the rather small increase in average grain size. The ductility enhancements were related to changes in the coincidence site lattice (CSL) Σ3n populations, manifested by a combination of changes in the overall proportions of Σ3 boundaries from 42 to nearly 70%and the distribution of v/vm, where v/vm is a measure of the proximity to the exact CSL configuration. The data were interpreted in terms of the types of Σ3 boundaries generated, and the occurrence of multiple twinning and ‘back twinning’.
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