Simultaneous Improvement in the Strength and Formability of Commercially Pure Titanium via Twinning-induced Crystallographic Texture Control

The rolling texture formed in the conventional cold rolling process of commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) for producing a metal sheet significantly limits the potential applications of CP-Ti sheets in various industrial sectors by impairing the formability. Here, we report that by exploiting a twinning-induced crystallographic texture modification, the rolling texture can be weakened and dispersed effectively, leading to a simultaneous improvement in the formability and yield strength. A two-stage cold rolling process was designed with intermediate annealing at a late stage of the conventional cold rolling process to generate deformation twins. The intermediate annealing drove the activation of {11 2 ¯2 } twin and {11 2 ¯2 } - {10 1 ¯2 } double twin in the second stage of the rolling process by removing the internal reaction stress developed in the first stage of the rolling process through recrystallization, and the crystallographic feature of the {11 2 ¯2 } twinned region, i.e., {11 2 ¯2 } twin texture, was effective for <a> type slips and {10 1 ¯2 } twinning to accommodate a through-thickness strain as well as for reducing the planar anisotropy. This enhanced thinning capability and reduced planar anisotropy in the {11 2 ¯2 } twin texture led to an improvement of the formability. We demonstrated the feasibility of the suggested two-stage cold rolling process with ASTM grade 2 CP-Ti.