Evaluation of the Crystallographic Orientation Relationships between FCC and BCC Phases in TRIP Steels

The crystallographic orientation relationships that are active during the transformation of austenite to bainite are studied for two TRIP steels by means of Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD). A detailed evaluation of about 360 retained austenite grains and their BCC neighbours was performed. Three relationships were considered, namely Kurdjumov–Sachs, Nishiyama–Wassermann and Pitsch. It was found that the majority of the austenite grains had at least one neighbour that could be related with one of the three orientation relationships. The Kurdjumov–Sachs relationship appeared to be dominant and no strong indication for variant selection could be retrieved from the studied data. It was, however, also demonstrated that some precautions need to be made since a clear distinction between the evaluation of a small region of the microstructure and conclusions made for the complete material is necessary.