The effect of changing the strain path on texture development, twin kinetics, and mechanical properties in twinning-induced plasticity steel was investigated to understand twinning behavior in more detail. Among the various plastic deformation processes, the wire drawing process was selected to achieve the aims of the study. Specimens of cold-drawn TWIP steel wire under the same effective strain but with different crystallographic textures were successfully fabricated using the effect of the wire drawing direction. Electron backscatter diffraction results showed that the drawn wires using both unidirectional (UD) and reverse-directional (RD) wire drawing processes were characterized as duplex fiber textures of major <111> and minor <100>. It was found that the RD wire had a higher fraction of <111> component at both the center and surface areas compared to the UD wire, because the metal flow of the RD wire was beneficial for the development of a <111> orientation. The pronounced <111> crystallographic orientation of the RD wire activated the twinning rate and geometrically necessary dislocation density, leading to an increase in strength but a decrease in ductility. The strain path is as important as the amount of strain for strengthening the materials, especially those that are deformed by twinning.
Keywords: deformation twin; drawing direction; grain orientation; strain path; twinning-induced plasticity steel; wire drawing.