High-resolution simulating of grain substructure in cold rolling and its effects on primary recrystallization in annealing of ferritic stainless steel

In this study, an integrated crystal plasticity and cellular automaton (CA) model has been developed and employed to investigate the processes of cold rolling and annealing in ferritic stainless steel. Crystal plasticity simulates the deformation microstructure, deformation texture and corresponding dislocation density distribution in the cold rolled ferritic stainless steel. Meanwhile, CA predicts the microstructural evolution originating from nucleation and growth. The resolution of the crystal plasticity model has been improved using a newly developed remeshing technique, which allows for the capture of the grain substructure in the deformation microstructure. The developed model has been validated by experimental measurements with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) in terms of comparing the orientation distribution functions (ODFs), misorientation, local substructures, and grain size. The good agreement between simulations and experiments indicates that the developed crystal plasticity with CA model is reliable and efficient for predicting the microstructure and texture evolutions during cold rolling and subsequent annealing.