Homogenisation annealing is only carried out on castings or hot-formed semi-finished moulds at the semi-finished product plants or foundries before delivery to the further processor. The heat treatment is carried out to compensate for segregations or local differences in composition. Alloys with the alloying elements tin (tin bronze with a wide solidification range) and copper-nickel alloys are mainly affected. Homogenisation annealing is carried out at relatively high temperatures with long annealing times and is therefore quite expensive.

The wrought alloy CuSn8 in particular tends to segregate strongly and is preferably homogenised at 760 °C before cold rolling in order to dissolve the brittle high-tin phase. Homogenisation annealing is not necessary for other copper materials that are hot and cold rolled, or are intermediately annealed (soft annealed) between individual cold forming operations.

For age-hardenable copper alloys, solution annealing above the solubility limit of the alloying element is also referred to as homogenising.

If, through cold forming, the strength of a material, with simultaneously decreasing elongation at fracture, takes on such high values that it cannot be cold formed any further, soft annealing must be carried out. In such an annealing, the soft state characterised by the formation of new crystals (recrystallisation) is generally aimed for. Recrystallisation depends on the grain size of the microstructure, the degree of deformation of the preceding cold working and the recrystallisation temperature. However, if the cold forming is too low, there is a risk of coarse grain formation during annealing. The correlations can be shown in a three-dimensional diagram and explain why no recrystallisation temperature can be specified for a particular material, but only a temperature range. The temperatures to be applied depend on the annealing time. Normally, a short annealing time will be applied at high temperatures and a long annealing time at low temperatures. However, if a recrystallisation diagram is available, the recrystallisation temperature can be specified for a given degree of deformation and known grain size for a given annealing time. Recrystallisation is preceded by material recovery. This is understood to be a relaxation of the material without new grain formation. Grain enlargement follows recrystallisation. It is a growth of energetically favourable grains at the expense of less favourable ones.

Stress relief annealing reduces the stresses present in the semi-finished product or workpiece due to cold forming without causing too great a drop in strength. Stress relief annealing is most important for copper materials that tend to stress corrosion cracking, e.g. for copper-zinc alloys. Since, in addition to a corrosion medium, the presence of internal or external tensile stresses is required for stress corrosion cracking to occur, the risk of corrosion can be significantly reduced by lowering the manufacturing-related tensile stresses. Furthermore, thermal stress relieving mitigates the risk of internal tensile stresses being released by further processing, which can lead to warping of the material. Furthermore, internal stresses add up with the external stress, so that under certain circumstances the load-bearing capacity of the semi-finished part or the workpiece is impaired. For stress relief annealing, the temperature and annealing time are selected so that the recrystallisation threshold is not reached. Material recovery takes place, structural irregularities heal and stresses are relieved without significantly reducing the mechanical strength properties. Thermal stress relieving should take place after cold working has been completed, which can introduce internal stresses into the workpiece. For example, machining can leave internal stresses in the finished machined workpiece.

The standardised copper casting materials are stress-relieved at 250 °C, with the exception of the copper-aluminium casting alloys. The annealing time is 1 h per 25 mm wall thickness. The stress relieving temperature of the copper-aluminium casting alloys is higher at 315 °C.