Cold rolling of an interstitial free (IF) steel—Experiments and simulations

•IF steel showed the development of partial α and complete γ fiber after cold rolling.•Full-field crystal plasticity Fast Fourier Transform (CPFFT) model DAMASK was used for cold rolling texture simulations.•In both experiments and simulations, the texture evolution involved increase in volume fractions of γ and α fibers.•3D simulations, even though statistical, were able to predict the texture evolution more accurately that 2D simulations involving EBSD data.•The variation in inputs (2D and 3D) does not seem to affect the general trend in stress and strain development, but it does affect the texture evolution during simulations. In the present work, the microstructure and texture evolution of interstitial free (IF) steel during cold rolling was studied experimentally and via simulations. Stored energy and geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) density maps were calculated from the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) data. The evolution of crystallographic texture, stress and strain during deformation were simulated using a full field crystal plasticity Fast Fourier Transform (CPFFT) model implemented in DAMASK (the Düsseldorf Advanced Material Simulation Kit), an open source code. The simulations for cold rolling of 2D i.e. EBSD data were done considering activation of one slip system ({110} ) as well as two slip systems ({110} +{112} ), while for 3D data (statistical microstructure generated via DREAM.3D) two slip systems were used. The stored energy increased with the increase in cold rolling reduction in general, the increase being more in γ fiber (ND// ) grains than the grains with other orientations. In experiments as well as simulations, the volume fraction of γ fiber and α fiber (RD// ) increased with cold rolling. The simulations done using two slip systems matched reasonably well with the experiments. The stress and strain during deformation increased and showed similar trend for both 2D and 3D simulations.