EBSD Quantification of Retained Austenite in 9% Ni Steel Related to Thermal Treatments

Abstract

The present work has been to study the effect of different finalizing preparation techniques on the amount of retained austenite measured with Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) and X-Ray-Diffraction (XRD) analysis. A supermartensitic stainless steel with an austenite content of 40 % was prepared with electropolishing, ion sputtering and chemical mechanical polishing. It is conclusive that electropolishing is the suitable preparation technique. By using electropolishing there was obtained 40 % retained austenite, in contrast there was obtained 14 % using ion sputtering and 25 % with chemical mechanical polishing.