3D Microstructure Characterization and Analysis of Al-Si Foundry Alloys at Different Length Scales

The term microstructure refers to the complete internal structure of a material on the micro, nano and atomic scales. On one hand, it records the entire history of a material’s processing and structuring (casting, forming, heat treatments, but also crystal growth, etc.) through its phase composition, defect structure and morphology. On the other hand, all properties (stiffness, formability, conductivity, all structural and functional properties) are determined by the microstructure. Thus, the microstructure can be seen as an intrinsic multi-scale memory from which we can read at each relevant scale the precise information about all microstructure-building processes as well as predict the final material properties. However, it could not be fully exploited so far due to the lack of adequate 3D characterization techniques. Today new emerging tomographic possibilities provide for the very first time all complementary 3D information in micro, nano and atomic scales.