The integration of experimental in-situ EBSD observations and numerical simulations: a novel technique of microstructural process analysis

The combination of subgrain‐ and grain‐scale microstructural data collected during in‐situ heating experiments and numerical simulations of equivalent microstructural development offers an innovative and powerful tool in the advancement of the understanding of microstructural processes. We present a system that fully integrates subgrain‐ to grain‐scale crystallographic data obtained during in‐situ observations during heating experiments in a scanning electron microscope and the two‐dimensional hybrid numerical modelling system Elle. Such a system offers the unique opportunity to test and verify theories for microstructural development, as predictions made by numerical simulations can be directly coupled to appropriate physical experiments and, conversely, theoretical explanations of experimental observations should be testable with numerical simulations. Discrepancies between data obtained with both techniques suggest the need for an in‐depth investigation and thus open up new avenues of theory development, modification and verification. In addition, because in numerical models it is possible to select the processes modelled, the effect of individual processes on the microstructural development of a specific material can be quantified. To illustrate the potential and methodology of the so‐called EBSD2Elle system, two in‐situ experiments and their equivalent numerical experiments are presented. These are static heating experiments of (a) an annealed Ni‐foil coupled with a front tracking model for grain growth and (b) a cold deformed rock salt with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations for subgrain growth.