Carbide precipitates in solution-quenched PH13-8 Mo stainless steel: a small-angle neutron scattering investigation

Abstract

This paper deals with the small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) investigation on solution-quenched PH13-8 Mo stainless steel. From the nature of the variation of the functionality of the profiles for varying specimen thickness and also from the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), it has been established that the small-angle scattering signal predominantly originates from the block-like metallic carbide precipitates in the specimen. The contribution due to double Bragg reflection is not significant in the present case. The single scattering profile has been extracted from the experimental profiles corresponding to different values of specimen thickness. In order to avoid complexity and non-uniqueness of the multi-parameter minimization for randomly oriented polydisperse block-like precipitate model, the data have been analyzed assuming randomly oriented polydisperse cylindrical particle model with a locked aspect ratio.