The morphology and substructure of highly tetragonal martensites in Fe-7 pct Al−C steels

Abstract

This investigation reports on an optical and electron microscope study of bct martensite formed in Fe-7 pct Al-1.5 pct C and Fe-7 pct Al-2.0 pct C alloys. In each case the martensite is plate-like containing$(112)[\bar 1\bar 11]$ transformation twins 100 to 200Å in width. The particular twin plane variant$(112)[\bar 1\bar 11]$ corresponds to the martensite habit plane variant (3, 15, 10)_F, which is predicted by the crystallography theory. The twins are uniformly spaced and extend completely from one martensite-austenite interface to the other as would be theoretically expected. The martensite plates are ideally lenticular in the 2 pct C alloy but those in the 1.5 pct C alloy frequently exhibit irregular interfaces which are attributed to impingement effects. All observations are in accordance with the phenomenological crystallography theory as applied to ferrous martensites with a {3, 15, 10}_F habit plane.