Recovery, Recrystallization, and Grain-Growth

This is a brief review of the important phenomena of recovery, recrystallization as well as grain-growth. The three mentioned phenomena are the mechanisms by which metals and alloys fix the structural damage introduced by the mechanical deformation and, as a consequence, in the physical and mechanical properties. These rehabilitation mechanisms are thermally activated. For this process, the materials have to be heated and any such heat-treatment is meant to reduce deformation-induced break is termed annealing. Other or different heat-treatments lead to recovery and recrystallization. It is rather strange that, though these phenomena are extremely important in metallurgical science and engineering, not so much work has been done as that in corrosion and shape memory technologies. An attempt has been made here to summarize all important aspects of these phenomena for the benefits of students of metallurgy, chemistry and solid state physics.