The Distribution of Grain Boundary Planes in Interstitial Free Steel

The grain boundary character distribution in a commercial IF steel has been measured as a function of lattice misorientation and boundary plane orientation. The grain boundary plane distribution revealed a relatively low anisotropy with a tendency for grain boundaries to terminate on low index planes having relatively low surface energy and large interplanar spacings. Although the most common grain boundary plane orientation was (111), grain boundaries terminated on higher index planes were sometimes found. For instance, at a misorientation angle of 60 deg about [111], symmetric {112} tilt boundaries were far more populous than [111] twist boundaries. The current observation revealed an inverse relationship between the measured populations and the previously reported grain boundary energies.