Microstructural path analysis of martensite burst

Abstract

Modeling the martensite reaction requires reckoning with spatial aspects of the reaction. For that, we used formal kinetics, more specifcally, the microstructural path method (MPM) to analyze the microstructure observed in a burst. The microstructural path analysis revealed that the size of the spread cluster in extended space, characterized by the Vandermeer and Juul-Jensen's impingement compensated mean intercept length, λG, remained constant, independently of the parent austenite grain size. Moreover, current analysis introduced a purely formal description of the reaction progress by taking the parent austenite grain size as the progress variable. This description worked very well and resulted in a relationship between the volume fraction of partially transformed austenite, VVG, and austenite grain size, λG. The signifcance of these fndings in the light of the advantages and disadvantages of formal kinetics is discussed.