Tracking the evolution of intergranular corrosion through twin-related domains in grain boundary networks

Christopher M. Barr, Sebastian Thomas, James L. Hart, Wayne Harlow, Elaf Anber, Mitra L. Taheri

Index: 10.1038/s41529-018-0032-7

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Abstract

Tailoring the grain boundary network is desired to improve grain boundary-dependent phenomena such as intergranular corrosion. An important grain boundary network descriptor in heavily twinned microstructures is the twin-related domain, a cluster of twin-related grains. We indicate the advantages of using twin-related domains and subsequent statistics to provide new insight into how a grain boundary networks respond to intergranular corrosion in a heavily twinned grain boundary engineered 316L stainless steel. The results highlight that intergranular corrosion is typically arrested inside twin-related domains at coherent twins or low-angle grain boundaries. Isolated scenarios exist, however, where intergranular corrosion propagation persists in the grain boundary network through higher-order twin-related boundaries.