Dissemination of IT for the Promotion of Materials Science (DoITPoMS)

DoITPoMS Micrograph Library Micrograph 743 and full record

Micrograph 743 and full record

Link to image file for micrograph 743
Micrograph no
743
Brief description
A medium carbon low alloyed structural steel
Keywords
Categories
System
Fe-C-X   Link to phase diagram
Composition
Fe, C medium (wt%), with small alloy addition
Standard codes
Reaction
Processing
Hot rolled and normalized.
Applications
Sample preparation
Sample polished as such (without any mounting). Etched first with 4% Picral to reveal the pearlite and bainitic structure and then etched in SMB solution to reveal further microstructural constituents.
Technique
Reflected light microscopy
Length bar
6 μm
Further information
The steel sample was etched in 4% picral solution first and revealed the presence of pearlite and carbides distinctly. Further tint etching in SMB resulted in the straw coloured martensite to appear as a band. Retained austenite is appearing as very fine white particles. The bainite is appearing as bluish-black background between the martensite constituents. Coarse dark grains are pearlite. Microhardness measurements and SEM studies further proved the constituents identity. Conventional nital etching is not successful in delineating all the micro-constituents so distinctly.
Contributor
Dr Amar K De
Organisation
ASPPRC, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines
Date
22/04/03
Licence for re-use
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
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