Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Introduction
2. Documentation
3. Section & Cutting
4. Mounting
5. Planner Grinding
6. Rough Polishing
7. Final Polishing
8. Etching
9. Microscopic Analysis
10. Metallographic Analysis
11. References
Introduction
Documentation
Metallographic analysis is a valuable tool. By properly documenting the initial provides a
powerful quality control as well as an invaluable investigative tool.
Mounting
The mounting operation accomplishes three important functions: 1. It protects the specimen edge and maintains the integrity of a material surface
features.
2. Fills voids in porous materials.
3. Improves handling of irregular shaped samples.
Mounting Process
To mount the specimen small plastic molds are suitable, then we put clear specimen
carefully places it in the mold.
The intended plane of the examination must be at the bottom.
Than we pour a mixture of cold settling compound hardner and cold settling
compound binder into the mold.
After 25-30 min. we remove the resin from mold but the specimen surface is still
uneven and slightly sticky.
Planer Grinding
Planer grinding is required to planarize the specimen and to reduce the damage
created by sectioning.
The planar grinding step is accomplished by decreasing the abrasive grit/ particle size
sequentially to obtain surface finishes that are ready for polishing.
We use more coarse paper for planer grinding.
We use silicon carbide waterproof paper of P 60 grade for planer grinding.
Care must be taken to avoid being too abrasive in this step, and actually creating
greater specimen damage than produced during cutting.
Rough Polishing
The purpose of the rough polishing step is to remove the damage produced during
cutting and planar grinding.
We use four different silicon carbide waterproof papers for rough polishing:
Finally, we use P 600 grade paper for rough polishing of metal specimen
Proper rough polishing will maintain specimen flatness and retain all inclusions or
secondary phases.
Make sure to press the specimen calmly and evenly on the paper.
After the rough polishing the specimen surface is almost mirror like, no more
scratches can be seen from naked eyes.
Final Polishing
The purpose of final polishing is to remove only surface damage.
It should not be used to remove any damage remaining from cutting and planar
grinding. If the damage from these steps is not complete, the rough polishing step
should be repeated or continued.
High napped polishing pads are the most common final polishing cloths for metals
and polymers. Its high nap provides it a very soft and gentle polishing action.
We use colloidal alumina as polishing abrasive.
The polishing times should nominally be less than 30 seconds.
Put less pressure on the specimen during final polishing.
At the end of the final polishing special care has to be taken to clean the specimen.
Etching
The purpose of etching is to optically enhance microstructural features such as grain
size and phase features.
Etching selectively alters these microstructural features based on composition, stress,
or crystal structure.
The most common technique for etching is selective chemical etching.
Chemical etching selectively attacks specific microstructural features. It generally
consists of a mixture of acids or bases with oxidizing or reducing agents.
We use NITAL solution (a mixture 2% of Nitric acid + 98% of Ethyl alcohol) for
etching of steel specimen.
We dip the specimen in NITAL solution for 1-3 minutes.
Now the specimen is ready for microscopic analysis.
Microscopic Analysis
First we put the steel specimen onto the microscope, be careful that always put
prepare surface faces downward.
Using the built in digital camera the polished specimen surface can be observed on the
monitor screen.
If one wants to see crystals, grains and grain boundaries than the micro section has to
be etched.
Metallographic Analysis
References
http://www.metallographic.com/Basics.htm
www.leica-microsystems.com
Metallography: Principles and Practice, G.F. Vander Voort, ASM International,
Materials Park, OH, 1999
Video on metallography Metallography Part II - Microscopic Techniques, Karlsruhe
University of Applied Sciences.