Comparison of grain size distributions in a Ni-based superalloy in three and two dimensions using the Saltykov method

A three-dimensional (3-D) dataset of Ni-based superalloy Inconel 100 is used as a validation case for using stereology to estimate 3-D grain sizes from 2-D data. 2-D sections of the IN100 dataset are extracted, from which 3-D size distributions are estimated through the use of the Saltykov method and compared to the true 3-D statistics. The Saltykov method corrected the upper tail disparity between the 2-D and 3-D grain size distributions, but the lower tail of the distribution was not improved.