A scanning electron microscope study of the effects of dynamic recrystallization on lattice preferred orientation in olivine

Effects of dynamic recrystallization on lattice preferred orientation (LPO) in olivine were investigated through the combination of two SEM-based techniques'. electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique for crystallographic orientation measurement and backscattered electron imaging (BEI) for dislocation observation. Samples are experimentally deformed olivine aggregates in simple shear geometry. In the sample deformed at T=1473 K and high stresses (similar to 480 MPa), only incipient dynamic recrystallization is observed along grain-boundaries. Orientations of these small recrystallized grains are more random than that of relict grains, suggesting an important role of grain-boundary sliding at this stage of recrystallization. In the sample deformed at T=1573 K and low stress (similar to 160 MPa), dynamic recrystallization is nearly complete and the LPO is characterized by two [100] peaks. One peak is located at the orientation subparallel to the shear direction and is dominated by grains with high Schmid factor. The other occurs at high angles to the shear direction and is due to the contribution from grains with low Schmid factor. Grains with high Schmid factor tend to have higher dislocation densities than those with low Schmid factor. Based on these observations, we identify two mechanisms by which dynamic recrystallization affects LPO: (1) enhancement of grain-boundary sliding due to grain-size reduction, leading to the modification of LPO caused by the relaxation of constraint for deformation; (2) grain-boundary migration by which grains with lower dislocation densities grow at the expense of grains with higher dislocation densities. Based on the deformation mechanism maps and stress versus recrystallized grain-size relation, we suggest that the first mechanism always plays an important role whereas the second mechanism has an important effect only under limited conditions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.