Deformation twinning and texture variation in Zr-2.5 Pct Nb alloy during rolling

Recently, it was proven that delayed hydride cracking (DHC) is accompanied by deformation twinning through the texture analysis of a fractured surface. Thus, in order to understand the operation of deformation twinning, the texture variations by rolling were investigated using Zr-2.5 pct Nb alloy with (1120) < 10 (1) over bar0 > texture. It was observed that deformation twinning was operated predominantly in the range of a 5 to 15 pet strain. The basal poles were rotated in the normal direction of a rolling plane with the strain, and the (0002) texture was fully reversed after 15 pet strain. This finding was established to be due to the operation of the {10 (1) over bar2} and {11 (2) over bar1} twinning systems through the analysis of the inverse pole figure. It appeared that the degree and easiness Of the twinning operation was affected by changing the direction of compression during rolling with respect to the initial {11 (8) over bar0} < 10 (1) over bar0 > texture. The contribution of deformation twinning to strain was quantitatively calculated using the change in the basal pole components.