SIMS evaluation of poly crystal boron nitride tool effect in thermo-mechanically affected zone of friction stir weld steels

Abstract

The effect of the poly crystal boron nitride (PCBN) tool in friction stir weld (FSW) steels was evaluated using the secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) technique. This study focused on the quantitative SIMS analysis of impurity boron through a resistive anode encoder (RAE) image. The RAE images were transformed retrospective depth profile by profiler. The relative sensitivity factors (RSFs) for boron varied heavily according to by the polarity of secondary voltage and matrix materials. The RAE images of cluster-polyatomic secondary ion species, 11B16O2, properly map the distribution of impurity boron in the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ) of FSW steels using negative secondary polarity 4.5 kV. A combination of cluster-polyatomic ion, 11B16O2 and 56Fe16O provided a good calibration curve by 3 SRMs with the least matrix effect. The boron concentrations of TMAZ in FSW steels were determined through the calibration curve by taking the corresponding boron concentration value (CB) of the intensity ratio (Ii/Im) from unknown samples. The new SIMS quantification technique of impurity boron from RAE images is found to be effective for a more quantitative understanding of the wear mechanism of the PCBN tool in TMAZ of FSW steels.