Estimation of three-dimensional grain size distribution from microstructural serial sections

Particle/grain size distribution is an important attribute of microstructur es. However, direct estimation of three-dimensional particle/grain size dis tribution has never been performed in opaque material microstructures due t o lack of a suitable serial sectioning technique. In this contribution, app lication of a montage-based efficient serial sectioning technique is presen ted for direct unbiased estimation of three-dimensional grain size distribu tion. The technique is used for estimation of three-dimensional grain size distribution of tungsten grains in a liquid phase-sintered (LPS) microstruc ture. It is shown that the montage-based serial sectioning technique is ver y efficient. It yields 25-100 times larger high-resolution three-dimensiona l serially sectioned volume as compared to that obtained from the same numb er of serial sections. The larger reconstructed microstructural volume prov ides sufficient number of particles/grains for a reliable estimation of det ailed size distribution. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved .