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Electron diffraction analysis of quenched Fe–C martensite

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Abstract

Martensite has a body-centered tetragonal (bct) structure in high carbon steels. However, body-centered cubic (bcc) {112} 〈111〉-type twins instead of bct twins always be observed as the substructure of martensite in high carbon steels. In this paper, martensitic substructure in a quenched high carbon Fe-1.4C (wt%) alloy has been investigated in detail using selected area electron diffraction (SAED) technique in a conventional transmission electron microscopy. The reciprocal lattice of martensite has been built based on the experimental SAED patterns. Two sets of diffraction spots (one face-centered cubic lattice and one hexagonal lattice) in the built reciprocal lattice suggest that two crystalline phases with bcc (or α-Fe) and hexagonal (ω-Fe) structure actually coexist in the twinned martensite. The two-phase diffraction spot patterns from the reciprocal lattice can match perfectly with the experimental results. The fact that the {0001}ω diffraction spot at the 1/3{222}α position and the {0002}ω at 2/3{222}α can support the ω-Fe existence in the twinned martensite.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15H02304.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute for Materials Science, Sengen 1-2-1, Tsukuba, 305-0047, Japan

    T. W. Liu, D. H. Ping & T. Ohmura

  2. Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-8628, Japan

    M. Ohnuma

Authors
  1. T. W. Liu
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  2. D. H. Ping
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  3. T. Ohmura
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  4. M. Ohnuma
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Correspondence to T. W. Liu or D. H. Ping.

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Liu, T.W., Ping, D.H., Ohmura, T. et al. Electron diffraction analysis of quenched Fe–C martensite. J Mater Sci 53, 2976–2984 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1731-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1731-0

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