Texture formation during compaction of nanocrystalline metal powder

Nano-sized powder composed of single crystals of an Au-13 at.%Pd alloy was produced by inert gas condensation (IGC). Uniaxial compaction of the powder was applied in two stages: already within the IGC chamber at 2 GPa pressure, followed by another compaction stage at 6 GPa, outside the chamber. This processing resulted in a weak 〈110〉 fiber texture of the compressed alloy. The crystallographic texture formation during compaction was simulated using different polycrystal plasticity models. The experimental texture evolution was faithfully reproduced using the relaxed constraints polycrystal plasticity model complemented with a grain boundary sliding approach. • 14 nm grain size Au-13 at.%Pd powder was produced by inert-gas condensation. • Compaction was done at 2 GPa, followed by 6 GPa. • <110> type fiber texture was obtained with 1.42 maximum intensity. • The compaction was simulated by {111}<110 > glide and grain boundary sliding. • Polycrystal simulations reproduced the experiments using relaxed constraints.