Recrystallization in Fe3Al following rolling to high levels of strain

Recovery and recrystallization have been examined on annealing Fe3Al alloy initially cold rolled to strains in the range 0.47–3.8. The cold worked microstructure is composed of poorly recovered dislocation cells of submicron size and lying in orientations near {0 0 1} 〈1 1 0〉 and {1 1 1} 〈1 1 0〉. A large drop in hardness accompanies recovery on annealing, as dislocation cells change to subgrains with lower dislocation density, with the hardness further falling slightly during recrystallization. Recrystallization occurs readily in regions with {1 1 1} 〈1 1 0〉 orientation but more slowly in the rotated cube oriented regions. Grain size of fully-recrystallized material decreases at high strain and for low annealing temperatures, but is always larger than several microns. Strength and ductility combinations are greatly increased for materials of submicron cell/subgrain microstructure.