Investigation of γ/γ' Alloy by Simultaneous EDS and EBSP Analysis

Abstract

This work describes an investigation of the microstructure of a γ/γ' Ni-base superalloy using the automated Electron BackScattering Pattern (EBSP) technique with simultaneous energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS). The goal of the investigation was to determine if EDS measurements necessary to discriminate γ' from γ' could be obtained when acquired simultaneously with a normal, high speed automated EBSP scan. The acquisition conditions that impact the EDS collection are: surface tilted ∼70 degrees from the beam axis, 70mm spectrometer to specimen distance limited by interference from the EBSP detector and approximately 300 ms available acquisition time.Thermo-mechanical processing of superalloys can produce coarse γ' that appears both within grains and at grain boundaries. In some conditions, the coarse γ' may be as large as many γ grains. As the crystal structure of γ and γ' are very similar, it is not possible to discriminate between the two phases using typical EBSP analysis. However, one needs to discriminate these phases in order to measure properties of the γ matrix such as texture and grain size.