ECCI, EBSD and EPSC characterization of rhombohedral twinning in polycrystalline α-alumina deformed in a D-DIA apparatus

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Publication Title

Journal of Applied Crystallography

Volume

50

Issue

6

First page number:

1691

Last page number:

1704

Abstract

Rhombohedral twinning in alumina (aluminium oxide, α-Al2O3) is an important mechanism for plastic deformation under high-temperature-pressure conditions. Rhombohedral twins in a polycrystalline alumina sample deformed in a D-DIA apparatus at 965 K and 4.48 GPa have been characterized. Three classes of grains were imaged, containing single, double and mosaic twins, using electron channeling contrast imaging (ECCI) in a field emission scanning electron microscope. These twinned grains were analyzed using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The methodology for twin identification presented here is based on comparison of theoretical pole figures for a rhombohedral twin with experimental pole figures obtained with EBSD crystal orientation mapping. An 85 021 angle-axis pair of misorientation was identified for rhombohedral twin boundaries in alumina, which can be readily used in EBSD post-processing software to identify the twin boundaries in EBSD maps and distinguish the rhombohedral twins from basal twins. Elastic plastic self-consistent (EPSC) modeling was then used to model the synchrotron X-ray diffraction data from the D-DIA experiments utilizing the rhombohedral twinning law. From these EPSC models, a critical resolved shear stress of 0.25 GPa was obtained for rhombohedral twinning under the above experimental conditions, which is internally consistent with the value estimated from the applied load and Schmid factors determined by EBSD analysis.This study presents rhombohedral twin characterization in plastically deformed alumina at high-pressure and -temperature conditions using electron channeling contrast imaging (ECCI) in a field emission scanning electron microscope, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and elastic plastic self-consistent (EPSC) numerical modeling on synchrotron X-ray diffraction data. © International Union of Crystallography, 2017.

Language

english

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