Grain boundary ensembles due to grain growth in copper with strong recrystallization texture

A strong cube texture was generated in copper after cold rolling and primary recrystallization. Additional successive annealing was performed to stimulate grain growth in the as-recrystallized microstructure. Microstructural changes, evolution of texture and distributions of grain boundaries and triple junctions during grain growth were investigated. A progressive strengthening of the cube texture entailed an increase in the fraction of low-angle boundaries. Slightly misoriented cube oriented grains clustered to form Σ1–Σ1–Σ1 triple junctions. Their fraction increased remarkably with the texture strengthening. The fraction of Σ3–Σ3–Σ1 junctions formed during grain growth at lower temperature remained constant upon additional high temperature annealing. The frequencies of triple junctions containing several random or special boundaries with Σ>3 tended to decrease during grain growth at higher annealing temperature.