Three-Dimensional Microstructure Reconstruction and Phase Boundary by Serial Sectioning and Numerical Approach
The microstructure and pores of the consolidated powder materials are important to determine the final properties of the pieces produced. Therefore, the control of their volume fractions and morphologies represent actual technological challenges. Besides the quantification of the phase and pores volume fractions there are important features related with the morphological aspects and the phase boundary structure that reveals the mechanisms of properties improvements, which are crucial for development of materials obtained by powder metallurgy techniques. In this paper, stereological measurements of pores present in the material stainless steel (316L) are obtained by combining serial sectioning technique and optical microscopy (OM). Dilatometric experiments were carried out in order to simulate heat treatment for sintering the material. The 3D microstructures are obtained by images reconstruction using numerical pixels treatment and stereological results of the porosities are presented.