The relative grain boundary area and energy distributions in a ferritic steel determined from three-dimensional electron backscatter diffraction maps

The relative grain boundary area and energy distributions of a ferritic steel were characterized as a function of lattice misorientation and boundary plane orientation using focused ion beam serial sectioning combined with electron backscatter diffraction. The grain boundary energy and population depended on both the grain boundary plane orientation and lattice misorientation. When misorientation was ignored grain boundary planes with the (1 1 1) orientation had the minimum energy and the largest relative areas. The most commonly observed boundaries were {1 1 2} symmetric tilt boundaries with the Sigma 3 misorientation; this boundary also had a low energy. On average there was a strong inverse correlation between the relative areas of different types of grain boundaries and the relative grain boundary energies. (C) 2012 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.