Correlative microscopy of a carbide-free bainitic steel

Christina Hofer; Vitaliy Bliznuk; An Verdiere; Roumen Petrov; Florian Winkelhofer; Helmut Clemens; Sophie Primig

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2015.10.008

Correlative microscopy of a carbide-free bainitic steel

Micron. 2016 Feb:81:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.micron.2015.10.008. Epub 2015 Nov 1.

Authors

Christina Hofer¹, Vitaliy Bliznuk², An Verdiere², Roumen Petrov³, Florian Winkelhofer⁴, Helmut Clemens⁵, Sophie Primig⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physical Metallurgy and Materials Testing, Montanuniversität Leoben, Franz-Josef-Straße 18, A-8700 Leoben, Austria. Electronic address: christina.hofer@unileoben.ac.at.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, B-9052 Zwijnaarde, Ghent, Belgium.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, B-9052 Zwijnaarde, Ghent, Belgium; Department Materials Science and Engineering, TU Delft, Mekelweg 2, NL-2628CD Delft, The Netherlands.
⁴ Research and Development - Business Unit Coil, voestalpine Stahl GmbH, voestalpine-Straße 3, A-4020 Linz, Austria.
⁵ Department of Physical Metallurgy and Materials Testing, Montanuniversität Leoben, Franz-Josef-Straße 18, A-8700 Leoben, Austria.

PMID: 26642344
DOI: 10.1016/j.micron.2015.10.008

Abstract

In this work a carbide-free bainitic steel was examined by a novel correlative microscopy approach using transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The individual microstructural constituents could be identified by TKD based on their different crystal structure for bainitic ferrite and retained austenite and by image quality for the martensite-austenite (M-A) constituent. Subsequently, the same area was investigated in the TEM and a good match of these two techniques regarding the identification of the area position and crystal orientation could be proven. Additionally, the M-A constituent was examined in the TEM for the first time after preceded unambiguous identification using a correlative microscopy approach. The selected area diffraction pattern showed satellites around the main reflexes which might indicate a structural modulation.

Keywords: Carbide-free bainite; Martensite–austenite (M–A) constituent; Transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD); Transmission electron microscopy (TEM).