**3. Results**

#### *3.1. Microstructure*

Inverse pole figure (IPF) maps of newly developed Al-6Mg with two different cold rolling conditions are shown in Figure 1. The results reveal that the CR20 alloy has more equiaxed grains compared to the CR50 alloy. The CR50 alloy has a deformed microstructure due to a higher cold rolling reduction ratio. Figure 2 shows the orientation distribution functions (ODF) of the CR20 and the CR50 alloy. Typical deformation textures of the cold-rolled Al-6Mg alloys are also shown in Figure 2. As the cold rolling reduction ratio increased, more deformed textures tended to be obtained.

**Figure 1.** Inverse pole figure (IPF) maps of the new Al-6Mg CR20 (**a**) and CR50 alloys (**b**).

**Figure 2.** ODF sections of the new Al-6Mg CR20 (**a**) and CR50 alloys (**b**). The triangle represents Brass texture, circle is Copper texture, and the square is used for S texture.

Miller indices of the texture components for rolled samples are listed in Table 2. In the previous studies it was reported that the fraction of deformation texture components (Brass {110} <112>, Copper {112} <111> and S {123} <634>) increased while the recrystallization texture (Cube {100} <010> and Goss {011} <100>) did not change with increasing cold

rolling reduction ratio in the Al-Mg alloy [22,23]. Figure 2a indicates that the CR20 alloy has an evolution of copper texture in Φ2 = 45 section. The CR50 alloy shows a strong copper texture (Figure 2b). In addition, the CR50 alloy shows a stronger brass and S texture compared to the CR20 alloy. The results are in accordance with previous research [22,23]. However, the recrystallization texture was not found in the newly designed Al-6Mg alloy, which shows a partial disagreement with previous studies [22,23]. Therefore, the texture of the newly developed Al-6Mg alloy is yet to be completely understood.


**Table 2.** List of texture components for cold-rolled samples.

Kernel average misorientation (KAM) is a measure of local grain misorientation based on the set of all neighboring misorientation. This map can be used to explain the effect of the rolling reduction ratio on the intergranular misorientation and evaluate the stored strain energy for a given point [24]. Figure 3 shows that the KAM map of the CR20 and CR50 alloys. The CR50 alloy exhibits a higher value of intergranular misorientation. As the reduction ratio of cold rolling increases, the dislocation density and volume fraction of lowangle grain boundary (LAGB) increase, which results in increasing KAM value. Figure 4 illustrates the grain size areas of CR20 and CR50 alloys. The average grain size areas of the CR20 and CR50 alloys were calculated as 365.8 ± 51.21 <sup>μ</sup>m2 and 283.6 ± 87.92 <sup>μ</sup>m2, respectively. These values correspond to average grain sizes of 19 ± 7 μm for the CR20 alloy and 17 ± 9 μm for the CR50 alloy, respectively.

**Figure 3.** KAM maps of the CR20 (**a**) and CR50 alloys (**b**).

**Figure 4.** Grain size area histograms of the CR20 (**a**) and CR50 alloys (**b**).
