Grain-boundary structure in an austenitic stainless steel

This paper considers to what extent the grain-boundary structure in a commercial material may be understood in terms of modern structural theories of crystal boundaries. It is shown that in one particular state (partially recrystallized) 78% of the boundaries, examined by transmission electron microscopy, could be said to contain the type of structure predicted by the theoretical approach (i.e. intrinsic dislocation arrays).This paper goes on to examine not only the equilibrium component of the boundary structure (intrinsic dislocation arrays) but also looks at the perturbations created in this component by the presence of other, non-equilibrium components (such as topographical discontinuities, precipitates and extrinsic dislocations produced by the dissociation of run-in matrix dislocations).