Fig. 1. The as-homogenized AZ31 sheet: (a) inverse pole figure (IPF) map; (b) (0001) pole figure (PF).

Fig. 2. Schematic of ECAB process: (a) key die geometry and processing parameters; (b) single pass at various temperatures and different routes at 200 °C (Route A and Route C).

Fig. 3. The accumulation of shear strain during ECAB: (a) specimen meshes after RA-P1 (e.g. single pass); (b) measured and calculated shear strain ${{\gamma }_{13}}$ for RA-P1; (c) specimen meshes after RA-P3 (e.g. three monotonic passes); (d) measured and calculated shear strain ${{\gamma }_{13}}$ for RA-P2 and RA-P3. Here, t/t0 equal to 0 and 1 indicates upper and lower sheet surface, respectively.

Fig. 4. EBSD measured IPF maps, twinning on band contrast maps, and (0001) PFs of ECAB specimens processed under different temperatures: (a)-(c) ECAB-RT; (d)-(f) ECAB-150; (g)-(i) ECAB-200 Region 1 (R1); (j)-(l) ECAB-250.

Fig. 5. (a) Schematic of EBSD region selection (boundary region, R1 and center region, R2); (b) IPF map and (c) (0001) PF for ECAB-200 R2. The boundary region can be distinguished with the center region by the slight differences in sheet thickness.

Fig. 6. EBSD measured IPF maps, (0001) PFs and misorientation angle distribution: (a)-(c) RA-P3; (d)-(f) RC-P3.

Fig. 7. EBSD measured twinning on band contrast and tilted angles between c-axis and ND: (a), (d) twinning map, (b), (e) titled angles ranging from 0° to 90°, and (c), (f) tilted angles within 30° with (a)-(c) for RA-P3 and (d)-(f) for RC-P3.

Fig. 8. EBSD measured IPF maps, twinning on band contrast maps, and (0001) PFs of annealed ECAB specimens: (a)-(c) ECAB-150; (d)-(f) RA-P3 R1; (g)-(i) RA-P3 R2; (j)-(l) RC-P3.

Fig. 9. Distributions of (a) tilted angles between c-axis and ND and (b) grain size of initial and annealed ECAB specimens extracted from Fig. 1, Fig. 8.

Fig. 10. True stress-train curves of annealed samples during tension along RD: (a) single ECAB pass and (b) different router ECAB; (c) necking features. Note that the tension test of ECAB-RT sheet was not performed since ECAB-RT sheet was fractured.

Fig. 11. Mechanical properties of initial and annealed ECAB sheets: (a) yield stress ${{\sigma }_{0.2}}$, ultimate tension stress ${{\sigma }_{UTS}}$; (b) elongations ${{\delta }_{u}}$ and ${{\delta }_{f}}$, n values for Swift hardening law.

Fig. 12. Magnified EBSD in the selected regions of RC-P3: (a) IPF map (white square in Fig. 6d); (b) twinning map (white square in Fig. 7d).

Fig. 13. Activation stress and selected deformation modes as a function of the tilted angle θ between c-axis <0001> and ND during tension along RD.

Fig. 14. The strain hardening rates of (a) single ECAB pass and (b) different ECAB routes derived from the true strain-stress curves in Fig. 11 (a) and (b) respectively.

Fig. 15. The $m\prime $ maps of basal slip and their statistical distributions: (a, b) initial sheet; (c, d) ECAB-150; (e, f) RC-P3.

Fig. 16. The ${{m}_{k-nor}}$ maps of basal slip and their statistical distributions: (a, b) initial sheet; (c, d) ECAB-150; (e, f) RC-P3.

Fig. 17. The ${{m}_{k-nor}}$ maps between ETW and CTW and their statistical distributions: (a, b) initial sheet; (c, d) ECAB-150; (e, f) RC-P3.

Fig. 18. EBSD measured IPF and twinning maps: (a) ECAB-150; (b) RC-P3 at the vicinity of sample fracture; (c) schematic of the strain accommodation mechanism for mixture of basal and non-basal orientation grains.