STUDY OF GRAIN BOUNDARY CHARACTER OF INTERSTITIAL-FREE STEELS BY EBSD

Grain boundary character distribution (GBCD) and connectivity in the recrystallized IF steel sheets which cold-rolled by different reductions were investigated by electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD).The results show that higher cold reduction is favorable for increasing the frequency of low-angle boundaries (∑1). While higher frequency of low-energy special boundaries (∑1~∑29) are favorable for the optimization of grain boundary connectivity. It has also been found that GBCD and connectivity of IF steels are closely related to the grain size. The small grains are mainly surrounded by special boundaries while the large grains are preferentially surrounded by random boundaries.