A novel heat stage, recently developed for use within the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), has facilitated Secondary Electron (SE) imaging at temperatures up to 850 °C. This paper demonstrates one of the applications of in-situ elevated temperature SEM imaging: observation and quantification of grain growth within the austenitic region of carbon steels. The resulting SE data have used the technique of thermal etching to capture possible 'abnormal grain growth' in the austenitic region. Previous ex-situ and post-heating results from carbon steels indicate normal, non-linear grain growth. Therefore, this new dataset provides greater insight into the heat treatment of steels. From comparison of the in-situ data with the overall grain growth, measured ex-situ, it is further concluded that abnormal grain growth is representative of the growth at temperature. Thus, the heating and cooling parts of the heat treatment are likely to account for the non-linearity previously documented in ex-situ results and hence the range of powers recorded when fitting power law models for steel grain growth. The ability of data derived from in-situ thermal etching to represent the microstructure of the entire surface and the bulk material is also considered. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

中文翻译：

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使用热蚀刻对碳钢奥氏体区晶粒生长的原位 SEM 观察

最近开发用于扫描电子显微镜 (SEM) 的新型加热台促进了在高达 850 °C 的温度下进行二次电子 (SE) 成像。本文展示了原位高温 SEM 成像的应用之一：观察和量化碳钢奥氏体区域内的晶粒生长。所得 SE 数据使用热蚀刻技术来捕捉奥氏体区域中可能的“异常晶粒生长”。以前碳钢的非原位和后加热结果表明正常的非线性晶粒生长。因此，这个新数据集提供了对钢热处理的更深入的了解。通过将原位数据与非原位测量的整体晶粒生长进行比较，进一步得出结论，异常晶粒生长代表温度下的生长。因此，热处理的加热和冷却部分可能会解释先前在非原位结果中记录的非线性，因此在拟合钢晶粒生长的幂律模型时记录的功率范围。还考虑了来自原位热蚀刻的数据代表整个表面和体材料的微观结构的能力。本文受版权保护。版权所有。还考虑了来自原位热蚀刻的数据代表整个表面和体材料的微观结构的能力。本文受版权保护。版权所有。还考虑了来自原位热蚀刻的数据代表整个表面和体材料的微观结构的能力。本文受版权保护。版权所有。