Abstract
Electron back-scatter diffraction has been used to assess the microtexture of regions of 8090 Al-Li sheet both where side-branched fatigue cracking has occurred and in control areas unaffected by cracking. The microtextures did not reflect the macrotexture as measured by X-rays, indicating inhomogeneous distributions of orientations. The microtexture of the “cracked” grains was complex and was deconvoluted to reveal several components dominated by the S-texture. The principal difference between “cracked” and “control” grains was that for the former the four crystallographically related S variants were intimately mixed on an individual grain scale whereas in the latter was mainly a single variant in a particular area. The results are discussed in terms of both recovery and recrystallisation mechanisms.