The successive stages of the thermomechanical processing of a material have a cumulative effect on its texture. Thus, texture analysis constitutes a powerful tool to investigate the previous history of their microstructure. Specifically, it is possible to distinguish between the processes of recrystallization and/or recovery, which occur upon annealing. Conventional recrystallization, involving the stages of nucleation and growth of grains, usually induces a discontinuous texture change. On the other hand, recovery preserves the texture of the cold-worked state. In addition, the various deformation mechanisms which may operate during deformation at high temperatures have a particular influence in the texture of the material. Crystallographic slip may lead to a change in the texture components, which depends on the operating slip systems, or to the formation of a fiber texture. On the contrary, grain boundary sliding either leads to the stabilization of the original texture (grain switching) or to the gradual decrease of the texture intensity due to the random rotation of grains.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a (CICYT) under Grant No. MAT94/0888.

Peer reviewed