Misorientation characteristics of interphase boundaries in particulate Al2O3-based composites

It is well known that the character and distribution of interphase boundaries has a significant impact on the properties of polycrystalline materials. For the quantitative characterization of interfaces between matrix and inclusions in two composite systems (Al2O3/WC and Al2O3/W), large sets of crystallographic misorientation data has been used. The misorientations were measured between the neighbouring regions of different phases. The experiment was based on orientation maps obtained by Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD) in an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM). For the particular arrangements of crystallite symmetries, Misorientation Distribution Functions (MDF) have been developed in such a way that each physically distinct misorientation was represented only once. Preferences for the special crystallographic correlations between matrix grains and inclusions, as well as the shares of interphase boundaries characterized by those correlations, have been evaluated in both composites.