Investigation of Contiguity with SEM-EBSD : Contiguity with the MTEX Script TrueEBSD

The contiguity was investigated through TrueEBSD, a script that reassigns Co (Cobalt) to correct for the lower signal intensity Co has compared to WC (Tungsten Carbide) in EBSD (electron backscattering diffraction). It was compared to different parameters measured in earlier studies and the contiguity was related to the different alloying materials added. The script was then overall evaluated since this is one of the first times it is used. The evaluation of the script showed that the technique was robust due to the large amount of data getting collected and analysed. The linear analysis showed that gave the closest contiguity compared to the TrueEBSD script. However, the script adds too much binder phase, in 7 out of 11 samples the binder phase volume was closer to the theoretical binder phase volume before the reassignment of Co. This leads to a lower contiguity than expected, a significant decrease in contiguity was seen by the reassignment for all samples. Mean contiguity can be calculated in two different ways, grain boundary weighed or weighted against number of grains. Both ways gave the same trend in contiguity. After the reassignment no correlation could be detected with any of the alloying elements. It could be seen that the contiguity was positively correlated with hardness and inversely correlated to toughness and grain size. The contiguity was also tested for magnification dependence but did not show any.