A framework for automated 3D microstructure analysis & representation

Abstract

Over the past 5 years there have been significant advances in developing serial-sectioningmethods that provide quantitative data describing the structure and crystallography of grain-level microstructures in three dimensions (3D). The subsequent analysis and representation of this information can provide modeling and simulation efforts with a highly-refined and unbiased characterization of specific microstructural features. For example, the grain structure and crystallography of an engineering alloy could be characterized and then translated directly into a 3D volume mesh for subsequent Finite Element Analysis. However, this approach requires a multitude of data sets in order to appropriately sample the intrinsic heterogeneity observed in typical microstructures. One way to circumvent this issue is to develop computation tools that create synthetic microstructures that are statistically-equivalent to the measured structure. This study will discuss the development of software programs that take as input a series of Electron Backscatter Diffraction Patterns from a serial sectioning experiment, and output a robust statistical analysis of the 3D data, as well as generate a host of synthetic structures which are analogous to the real microstructure. Importantly, the objective of this study is to provide a framework towards complete microstructure representation that is consistent with quantifiable experimental data.