Comparative Study of Gallium Enhanced Microscopy and EBSD for Revealing Grain Boundaries and Dislocation Subgrain Boundaries inAluminium Alloys

摘要

A new technique, gallium enhanced microscopy (GEM) for studying grain boundaries andrndislocation subgrain boundaries in aluminium alloys was presented recently. By addingrnsmall amounts of gallium to aluminium alloys, increased visibility of grain boundaries andrnsubgrain boundaries is achieved in the SEM. Recent GEM results show that boundariesrnwith misorientations less than 1° can be detected due to the presence of galliumrnconcentrated at them. The present paper describes briefly how the GEM method is appliedrnand compares results obtained with this technique to characterisation using EBSD.rnSeveral comparative studies of a cold rolled AA3103 alloy annealed to different conditionsrnwere performed. The results show that GEM is a very reliable tool for the characterisationrnof grain boundaries as well as subgrain boundaries in aluminium alloys.