Statistical analyses of deformation twinning in magnesium

To extract quantitative and meaningful relationships between material microstructure and deformation twinning in magnesium, we conduct a statistical analysis on large data sets generated by electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD). The analyses show that not all grains of similar orientation and grain size form twins, and twinning does not occur exclusively in grains with high twin Schmid factors or in the relatively large grains of the sample. The number of twins per twinned grain increases with grain area, but twin thickness and the fraction of grains with at least one visible twin are independent of grain area. On the other hand, an analysis of twin pairs joined at a boundary indicates that grain boundary misorientation angle strongly influences twin nucleation and growth. These results question the use of deterministic rules for twin nucleation and Hall–Petch laws for size effects on twinning. Instead, they encourage an examination of the defect structures of grain boundaries and their role in twin nucleation and growth.