Relative grain boundary area and energy distributions in nickel

Abstract

The three-dimensional interfacial network of grain boundaries in polycrystalline nickel has been characterized using a combination of electron backscatter diffraction mapping and focused ion beam serial sectioning. These data have been used to determine the relative areas of different grain boundary types, categorized on the basis of lattice misorientation and grain boundary plane orientation. Using the geometries of the interfaces at triple lines, relative grain boundary energies have also been determined as a function of lattice misorientation and grain boundary plane orientation. Grain boundaries comprising (1 1 1) planes have, on average, lower energies than other boundaries. Asymmetric tilt grain boundaries with the R9 misorientation also have relatively low energies. The grain boundary energies and areas are inversely correlated.

Three-dimensional characterization of grain boundaries in pure nickel by serial sectioningviamechanical polishing

“…Boundaries with the AE3 and AE9 misorientations (with a tolerance of 3 ) are colored in green and red, respectively; all other boundaries are shaded. number of grains contained in this volume was relatively small; it was about half of that investigated by Li et al (2009). The total area of boundaries in the studied sample was 2.7 Â 10 7 mm 2 ; for comparison, it was only 1.4 Â 10 4 mm 2 in one (out of five) of the specimens of Li et al (2009).…”

“…number of grains contained in this volume was relatively small; it was about half of that investigated by Li et al (2009). The total area of boundaries in the studied sample was 2.7 Â 10 7 mm 2 ; for comparison, it was only 1.4 Â 10 4 mm 2 in one (out of five) of the specimens of Li et al (2009). However, the error of the boundary distribution is affected by the number of individual boundaries not the boundary area, and therefore, the investigated data set is statistically smaller than that considered by Li et al (2009).…”

“…metals, including, for example, Ni-based superalloy IN100 (Glowinski & Morawiec, 2014) and austenite (Beladi et al, 2014). Our result needs to be directly compared with that for pure fine-grained nickel determined by Li et al (2009) using FIB-based sectioning. Li's material differed from that investigated in our study by processing history and, in consequence, by average grain size and grain size distribution:…”

“…Li et al, 2009;Glowinski & Morawiec, 2014;Beladi et al, 2014;Saylor et al, 2003). A considerable part of this collection is related to facecentered cubic (f.c.c.)…”

“…to derive the distribution of the grain boundary parameters for magnesia (Saylor et al, 2003), lead-tin alloy (Rowenhorst & Voorhees, 2012), yttria , nickel (Li et al, 2009;Rohrer et al, 2010) and CuZr alloy (Khorashadizadeh et al, 2011). In this technique, a series of closely spaced parallel sections reveal the third dimension of the microstructure.…”