EBSD ANALYSIS OF PHASE COMPOSITIONS OF TRIP STEEL ON VARIOUS STRAIN LEVELS.docVIP

15 Materials Engineering, Vol. 16, 2009, No .2 EBSD ANALYSIS OF PHASE COMPOSITIONS OF TRIP STEEL ON VARIOUS STRAIN LEVELS Ond?ej Man , Libor Pant lejev , Zbyn k Pe?ina1 1* ě 1 ě th th Received 16 April 2009; accepted in revised form 5 May 2009 Abstract Flat test bar made of TRIP steel was sequentially strained in tension. Eeach deformation step was made on a predefined strain level in which the phase composition was measured using EBSD; the analyses were made ex-situ exactly in the same area of 30x30μm. Retained austenite (RA) was present in the form of elongated grains (plates) and roughly equiaxial ones. The RA content was initially 14.5% and decreased with imposed strain down to approximately 5% in selected strain range from 0% to 10%. This is in agreement to some extent with outcomes of both in-situ and ex-situ experiments presented by other authors, the difference beeing supposed either in data clean up or in variation in micriostruct ure of particular steel. Kernel average misorientation method was confirmed as useful tool to discern bainite and grainy ferrite in lightly deformed specimen. Problem arose in distinguishing between martensite and deformed ferrite at higher deformation levels because of high dislocation density and/or lattice distortion in both components. The ferrite and retained austenite fraction were analysed with sufficient accuracy; martensite fraction was established with high degree of uncertainty. Keywords: Electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD); TRIP effect; Retained austenite. 1. Introduction consuming SEM operation but can provide sufficiently detailed information on the phase distribution inside the analysed area [2, 3]. One group of engineering materials that attracts interest for a period of time already is the set of TRIP assisted steels becaus