Relationship Between Local Stress Field in Austenite and Variant Selection in Deformation-induced Martensitic Transformation in Fe-24Ni-0.3C Alloy

Estimation of Phase Ratio in Bulk, Textured TWIP/TRIP Steels from Pole Figures

The volume fraction of austenite (γ), ε martensite and α′ martensite is of key importance in the research of TWIP/TRIP steels. When mechanical loading is involved, the crystallographic texture also develops, which complicates X-ray diffraction-based phase ratio determination. The problem is more pronounced when only a couple, or only one Bragg-reflection can be measured. A solution for such cases is to determine the ratio of the phases based on the pole distribution function of a selected Bragg-reflection of the present phases. In this manuscript, this method is reconsidered for and applied to non-transmittable bulk specimens for the first time in the reflection mode of XRD pole figure measurements. First, the method was applied to a series of γ–α′ powder mixtures. The results were compared to those obtained by the Rietveld method. Afterwards, the technique was applied to strongly textured, bulk TWIP/TRIP steel specimens which were tensile tested at different temperatures. It was shown that the results of the presented method were close to those of the Rietveld technique in the case of powder mixtures. The results of the tensile-tested steels revealed that the α′ content increases with decreasing test temperatures, and the variation of the α′ ratio correlates very well with the ultimate tensile strength versus the temperature, confirming the contribution of the α′ content to the strength of TWIP/TRIP steels.

Electron backscatter diffraction study of variant selection during ordering phase transformation in L10-type red gold alloy

A shape-memory effect is known to appear in red gold alloys with compositions close to Au–Cu. The aim of this paper is to study by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) the variant selection in the A1 → L10 transformation occurring under stress, in bending conditions. The L10 domains are successfully identified by this technique despite the c/a ratio being close to unity. The orientation relationship between the cubic and tetragonal phases is determined by a careful analysis of the EBSD data. The distortion of the lattice for each variant is then modelled and calculated from the experimental orientations. The mechanical work associated with the transformation is computed from the lattice distortion by neglecting the obliquity. Finally, the distribution of this mechanical work is compared with the case of a uniform distribution of all variants, in order to evaluate the extent of variant selection. The maximal work criterion, often used for martensitic transformations, enabled quantification of the variant selection phenomenon.