Microtexture determination by electron back-scatter diffraction

A review describes the use of an experimental technique known as electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD) to measure microtexture, that is, spatially specific texture measured on an individual orientation basis. Other methods of microtexture determination are briefly described and compared with EBSD. The EBSD technique itself is described in considerable detail, including recent developments such as on-line automation. Those EBSD-based microtexture studies which have been reported in the literature are summarized, including those which provide a direct comparison with macrotexture measurements obtained by X-ray diffraction. The concept of microtexture as the texture of individual grains leads naturally to the idea of "mesotexture" as the texture of grain boundaries. Mesotexture data can be computed from the EBSD-generated microtexture measurements and this is demonstrated and examples are given. Examples of microtexture/mesotexture studies in multiphase materials are shown. Finally, because EBSD allows the simultaneous determination of microtexture/mesotexture and microstructural information, it is pertinent to discuss ways of displaying this sort of data, and so the review is completed by a discussion of the representation of microtextures and mesotextures, including the use of Rodrigues--Frank space and orientation mapping. Materials shown include: austenitic steel, Ni, tungsten, Zircaloy, Ni-base superalloy, carbon steel, and Al-base alloy.