Texture evolution of 440 MPa grade Nb-bearing high strength IF steel during rolling and annealing process

The texture evolution from rolling process to annealing process of 440 MPa grade Nb-bearing high strength IF steel (IF-HSS) was studied. Moreover, the texture of different section in thickness direction of steel sheet after annealing was investigated. Macro-texture measurements using XRD shows that hot rolling texture in Nb-bearing IF-HSS includes a weak γ-fiber and α-fiber, of which main texture components are {001}〈110〉,{111}〈110〉 and {111}〈112〉. It is worthy of note that the γ-fiber skeleton line formed after hot rolling. During cold rolling, the absolute maximum shifts to {111}〈112〉 along the γ-fiber and the maximum along the α-fiber shifts to {112} 〈110〉. During recrystallization annealing process, the weaker α-fiber and stronger γ-fiber cold rolling texture transformed to a very strong γ-fiber annealing texture. After annealing the main components from surface to mid-section along thickness display the same character for both α-fiber and γ-fiber, while textures intensity at 1/4 section is higher than that of surface and mid-section.