Study of Bonding of Grain Boundaries in Steels Using EELS

A novel EELS technique was developed to study bonding of grain boundary in many kinds of steels. We measured the normalized intensities of Fe white lines and calculated the occupancies of 3d states of iron, and then analyzed the relationship of the occupancies of 3d states of iron and the fracture property of the steels. We found that if the grain boundary has a different occupancy of 3d state of iron from that of the bulk, the steel tends to have an intergranular fracture, whereas if the grain boundary has almost the same occupancy of 3d state as the bulk, the steel tends to have a transgranular fracture. Our result shows that the difference in the occupancy of 3d state between bulk and grain boundary can be used to study the fracture mode at grain boundary in steel.