High-pressure torsion applied to nickel single crystals

Nickel single crystals with different crystallographic orientations were deformed by high-pressure torsion. Special attention is devoted to examining the evolution of the micro-texture and microstructure. The initial crystal orientation was found to have a significant effect on the mechanical hardening and evolution of micro-texture at low and medium equivalent strains, whereas at very high strains no effect of the initial orientation was observed and the behaviour was very similar to a polycrystal. The evolution of micro-texture is in good qualitative agreement with the full constrained Taylor model. At very high equivalent strains the initial crystal orientation has no influence on micro-texture. At such strains, the hardening, the refinement of the structure and the texture reaches a saturation. The final micro-texture is explained by the change from one preferred crystallographic orientation to another.