Fractal Analysis Method of Structural Components Orientation

The experience of low-alloy high-strength steels using has shown that, along with significant advantages, they have a number of disadvantages. One of the most dangerous is considered to be the increased weld metals susceptibility to brittle fracture under the thermal cycle of welding, increased hydrogen content in the weld metal and a number of other factors influence. Efforts aimed at suppressing such a tendency are primarily associated with the dispersed microstructure formation with an intergranular boundary branched network, a reduced residual stress level. In addition to the above characteristics, toughness and plasticity levels are affected by the grains orientation in the metal microstructure. To determine this indicator, the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) method is used. The paper presents the results of a study of the possibility of using an alternative method based on the Hough transform to determine the grains orientation and the misorientation angle at the boundary of two neighboring grains in the weld metal structure. The possibility of using the results obtained on the basis of Hough transformations to assess the weld metal susceptibility to brittle fracture is shown.