Development of the Cube Component \( \left( {\left\{ 001 \right\}\left\langle {100} \right\rangle } \right) \) During Plane Strain Compression of Copper and Its Importance in Recrystallization Nucleation

The origin of cube texture during recrystallization of medium to high stacking-fault energy FCC metals has been debated for several decades. However, the evolution of cube component during deformation is not studied well and hence, it is still unclear what are the favorable nucleation sites for the cube oriented recrystallized grains. To resolve this issue, we applied a full field crystal plasticity model utilizing a dislocation density based constitutive theory for the simulation of plane strain compression of polycrystalline copper. Simulation results reveal that the grains with initially cube orientation retained a small fraction of the cube component in the deformed state, whereas, some of the grains with initially non-cube orientations developed the cube component during the deformation. For strain up to 0.46, non-cube grains which are within 10 to 20 deg from the ideal cube orientation showed the highest tendency to develop the cube component during deformation. However, the cube component developed during the deformation was unstable and rotated away from the cube orientation with further deformation. With increasing strain up to 1.38, some of the grains with higher angular deviation from the ideal cube orientation also developed the cube component. No particular axis preference was observed for the non-cube grains, rather, the evolution of the cube component becomes dynamic at larger strain. Analysis of the disorientation angle and the dislocation density difference with the neighboring locations shows that the cube component developed during the deformation can play a significant role during nucleation. These findings will be useful for controlling the cube texture in FCC metals.