Microstructure Analysis Based on Local Orientation Measurements

Abstract

One of the basic tasks of material engineering is the search for relations between the particular (significant from the point of view of technology) properties of a polycrystalline material and its microstructure. Thus a quantitative, possibly complete description of the microstructure which would also allow a quantitative investigation of its relations with the material properties is essential. A basis for such a description is the information contained in a set of orientations obtained from systematical local measurements in the sample space. Such a set of measured local orientations arranged in points of a regular grid or in individual crystallites (or grains) in the sample plane will be named orientation topography [1]. It represents a rich source of information on the microstructure of the material matrix. At present, due to the progress of the automatization technique of the diffraction measurements, especially in the scanning electron microscopy, the difficulties of realizing routine rapid single orientation measurements and the determination of the orientation topography in the sample plane have been overcome [2]. New possibilities of a quantitative description of the microstructure taking into consideration aspects of crystallographic orientation have appeared.