On measurement of retained austenite in multiphase TRIP steels - results of blind round robin test involving six different techniques

The present paper reports the results of a blind round robin test dedicated to the measurement of the retained austenite content of different TRIP assisted multiphase steels. Various surface and volume techniques, i.e. light microscopy, X-ray diffraction, electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), magnetic saturation, thermal diffusivity and laser ultrasonics, were used by different partners. The compiled results show a quite large variability of the estimated retained austenite content, particularly for well established techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and magnetisation. On the other hand, emerging techniques like EBSD, thermal diffusivity and laser ultrasonics warrant further investigations.