Texture control in manufacturing current and future grades of low-carbon steel sheet

Quantitative texture analysis has significantly contributed to the development of new steel qualities in the last decades. For a number of steel grades (e. g. deep drawing and electrical steels) the relevant properties are explicitly dependent on the crystallographic anisotropy. It is self-evident that for these steels the precise control of texture development in the subsequent stages of the manufacturing process is of crucial importance. But also for the products of which the properties do not bear a close connection with the crystallographic texture, the assessment of textural change in solid-state transformation may contribute to a better understanding of the formation of microstructures and thus an improved control of all structure sensitive properties. In this paper an overview is presented of the current state-of-the-art and future trends with regard to texture control in deep drawing steels and advanced high strength steels such as TRIP and TWIP steels. The potential of the double cold rolling process with intermediate annealing is discussed for the development of super deep drawable grades. It is shown that a selective transformation of {111} orientations from the recrystallized ferrite matrix may occur during the intercritical annealing of a cold rolled TRIP steel. The recrystallization process in cold rolled TWIP steels is largely conditioned by the stacking fault energy of the material and specific features of the deformation structure