Hi All,
I would like to observe the 3D morphology of Fe-rich intermetallics in Al wrought alloy, e.g. AlFeMnSi, using SEM. Does anyone have experience or idea about what the best procedure would be to expose the intermetallics by deep etching or extracting ideally without any special apparatus?
Thanking in advance!
In my limited knowledge on the matter, if you want observe the 3D shape, some form of specialized equipment is necessary e.g., FIB-SEM tomography etc. I would think that the size of these intermetallic particles are in the range of 1-20um2. If big enough, they may also show up on XCT tomography. Not all intermetallics will have the same 3D shape. Usually their shapes can be highly arbitrary based on their specific stoichiometry.
However, if access to specialized equipment is hard to come by, I will suggest creating virtual microstructures from images of three orthogonal planes. Now choosing the method of creating virtual microstructures is key here. I will suggest to look for methods in the literature that have achieved high fidelity to actual microstructures in terms of morphological features of precipitates or intermetallics. Machine learning can also be used to recreate microstructures of reasonable morphological fidelity. It has been demonstrated to give reasonable results.
Dear Dr . Pavel Shurkin ,
I suggest you to have a look at the following, interesting paper:
-Evolution of Fe Bearing Intermetallics During DC Casting and Homogenization of an Al-Mg-Si Al Alloy
Kumar, S., Grant, P.S. & O’Reilly, K.A.Q.
Metall Mater Trans A 47, 3000–3014 (2016).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-016-3451-5
Available, as open access, at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11661-016-3451-5
Good work and my best regards, Pierluigi Traverso.
Hi all, just decided to use grinding followed by immersion in 20%HCl(48%) +80%water for up to 2 hours with continuous observation using optical microscope until the aluminum dissolved completely at a statistically reasonable area. Will have SEM observation soon, should be ok.
I would go for Industrial CT scan of macro/micro scale to observe that, which is a non-destructive method and please refer to the following paper.Turbulent breakup of non-metallic inclusions and equiaxed crystals during solidification of a hypoeutectic Al-Si alloy - ScienceDirect
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