Scale‐dependent hierarchy of structural elements in the microstructure of thermomechanical treated ferritic steels with residual austenite

Experimental results of the structural investigations of dislocations and carbides are presented here for four steels with ferritic‐carbide structures which were subjected to different final thermal processing. The investigation was carried out using different methods which involved optical microscopy, REM, TEM and x‐ray structural analysis. The complex procedures implemented permitted both investigations at intervals from the macro to the micro scale as well as detection of the total spectrum of the scale and structure levels which form during the steel's thermal treatment. As a consequence of these analyses, representative structural volume elements (RSVE) were detected which includes all relevant structural parameters, i.e. dislocation structures, precipitates and phases.