Recrystallisation annealing

A low temperature annealing treatment carried out on cold-worked material in order to develop a new, fine, crystalline microstructure (known as a fine-grained structure) without changing its phase.

The new crystal structure is free from the strains caused by cold working and responds in a predictable manner to subsequent processing. If too high a temperature is used, it can result in a coarse crystalline structure (known as a coarse-grained structure) with unpredictable properties.

Cold working followed by recrystallisation annealing is the only way to obtain a smaller grain size in pure metals and alloys which only have a single phase.