Effect of texture on grain growth in an interstitial-free steel sheet

The effect of crystallographic texture on grain growth was studied in two samples from an interstitial-free steel sheet with two different primary recrystallization textures, one with a pronounced {111} fiber texture and the other with an almost random texture. Upon grain growth annealing, the sample with the random texture showed slow continuous grain growth. In the strongly textured material discontinuous grain growth prevailed at a higher growth rate. The effect of texture on the rate of grain growth is discussed in terms of the motion of the grain boundary triple junctions in the two samples with different distributions of grain-to-grain misorientations. Numerical simulations with a 2D vertex model confirmed the influence of the triple junctions on the development of microstructure and texture observed during grain growth in the two differently textured steel samples.