EBSD imaging of orientation relationships and variant groupings in different martensitic alloys and Widmanstätten iron meteorites

An automatic method to colorize and quantify the classical Pitsch, Kurdjumov-Sachs, Greninger-Troiano and Nishiyama-Wasserman orientation relationships in the electron backscatter diffraction maps of martensitic/bainitic steels is detailed. Automatic analysis of variant grouping is also presented. The method was applied to low and high carbon steels, and to iron-nickel Widmanstätten meteorites. Many results of recent literature are confirmed. In low carbon steels the individual laths exhibit continuous orientation gradients between the classical orientation relationships, and the laths tend to be grouped by close-packed plane (morphological) packets. A crystallographic scenario describing the formation of the packets is proposed on the base of the one-step model. When the carbon content increases, the orientation spreading is reduced; and martensite tends to form plate groups and burst configurations. In iron-nickel meteorites, the centimeter long Widmanstätten laths do not exhibit continuous orientation gradients but are constituted of subgrains with uniform orientation relationship; the kamacite grains in the plessite regions are grouped into Bain zones, probably due to a recrystallization during the slow cooling of the meteorites.