strathSEEA

The first analysis to be carried out was on the expansion due to sample preparation of the non-treated samples. Although it was expected that any change in lattice dimensions would be very small compared to the expansion found due to carburisation, it was still interesting to note how the different materials reacted to sample preparation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As can be seen from Table 4, the different materials appear to react in a slightly different ways. The Stainless Steel 353 sample was of particular interest, as it had noticeably contracted in the {111} plane after the polishing process. All of the other stainless steel samples showed very little variations post-polishing as expected.

 

The nickel samples appear to have been affected slightly more by the preparation process than the iron based samples, however when examining the Inconel 617 sample, the change is still insignificant.

 

In the case of Nikrothal nickel sample, a large contraction of -1.1617% was witnessed on the {220] plane which was a larger shift than what was expected to be witnessed. It was also of similar magnitude to the shift seen in Stainless Steel 353.

 

It is interesting to note that the two significant shifts were both contractions and not expansions. But overall the changes in atomic spacing due to preparation are small enough to be considered normal.