Texture and anisotropy are persistent characteristics of polycrystal. Because of the ordered and periodic arrangement of atoms in crystal lattices, responses of each oriented crystals in a polycrystal to the same external forces are not similar. Crystal grains which are better accommodated to boundary conditions because of their energetically orientation stable, should have higher volume fractions. The dependence of crystal behaviors on their relative orientations to applied field vector(s) result in anisotropy. To enhance or reduce anisotropy, crystallographic texture in materials need to be controlled and improved.@en

The occurrence of preferential grain etching (PGE) during alkaline etching of aluminum extrusion alloys from the 6XXX series is often linked to the presence of certain impurity elements such as zinc, causing an undesired etching appearance. In the presented work, an additional culprit in this context is identified, which has not been investigated yet. A clear relation between PGE and the presence of a subsurface shear layer is identified for extruded Al 6060 alloys containing 0.02 and 0.06 wt% Zn. This shear layer can be distinguished from the bulk of the metal by its difference in crystallographic texture as visualized by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). For the Zn enriched alloy, the <111>//ND grains are etched away faster than grains with other orientations, resulting in the grainy appearance typical for PGE. Independent of the Zn content in the alloy, once the shear layer is removed and <111>//ND grains are practically absent on the new surface, the depths variations caused by preferential etching disappear. Instead, the surface of the alloy is attacked uniformly by the caustic etch bath.

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