Using transmission Kikuchi diffraction to study intergranular stress corrosion cracking in type 316 stainless steels.

Transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD), also known as transmission-electron backscatter diffraction (t-EBSD) is a novel method for orientation mapping of electron transparent transmission electron microscopy specimen in the scanning electron microscope and has been utilized for stress corrosion cracking characterization of type 316 stainless steels. The main advantage of TKD is a significantly higher spatial resolution compared to the conventional EBSD due to the smaller interaction volume of the incident beam with the specimen. Two 316 stainless steel specimen, tested for stress corrosion cracking in hydrogenated and oxygenated pressurized water reactor chemistry, were characterized via TKD. The results include inverse pole figure (IPFZ) maps, image quality maps and misorientation maps, all acquired in very short time (<60 min) and with remarkable spatial resolution (up to 5 nm step size possible). They have been used in order to determine the location of the open crack with respect to the grain boundary, deformation bands, twinning and slip. Furthermore, TKD has been used to measure the grain boundary misorientation and establish a gauge for quantifying plastic deformation at the crack tip and other regions in the surrounding matrix. Both grain boundary migration and slip transfer have been detected as well.