The Kinetics of and the Microstructure Induced by the Recrystallization of Copper

The kinetics of the recrystallization of pure copper was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The associated microstructural change was characterized by electron backscatter diffraction imaging (EBSD), by analyzing deformed specimens before recrystallization and specimens after partial recrystallization and after completed recrystallization. The experimental results acquired by the two methods were compared with each other and discussed in the context of the available body of literature results. The observed kinetics deviate from Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov (JMAK)-like behavior. The observed grain-area distribution is unusually broad and skewed toward large grains. Comparison with mesoscopic, geometric simulations showed that previously proposed (simple) models fail to correctly describe the microstructure resulting from recrystallization, although they can successfully model the recrystallization kinetics. It was concluded that the experimental results on both the kinetics and the microstructure can be reconciled employing a recrystallization model incorporating ongoing (i.e., beyond time t = 0) nucleation and accounting for the inhomogeneous nature of the deformed material.