title: Three-dimensional studies of intergranular carbides in austenitic stainless steel.
abstract: A large number of morphological studies of intergranular carbides in steels have always been carried out in two dimensions without considering their dispersion manners. In this article, focused ion beam serial-sectioning tomography was carried out to study the correlation among the grain boundary characteristics, the morphologies and the dispersions of intergranular carbides in 347 austenitic stainless steel. More than hundred intergranular carbides were characterized in three dimensions and finally classified into three different types, two types of carbides probably semi-coherent to one of the neighboring grains with plate-type morphology, and one type of carbides incoherent to both grains with rod-type morphology. In addition, the rod-type carbide was found as the largest number of carbides among three types. Since large numbers of defects, such as misfit dislocations, may be present at the grain boundaries, which can be ideal nucleation sites for intergranular rod-type carbide precipitation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Minoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ochi
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Rika
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kawano
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Takuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Yukio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Teranishi
authors.affiliation: Surface Physics and Structure Unit, Advanced Key Technologies Division, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki305-0044, Japan.
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hara
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Steel, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Masao
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi, Fukuoka819-0395, Japan.
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaneko
keywords: FIB–SEM serial-sectioning; TEM; intergranular carbides; stainless steel; three-dimensional observation