Effect of Solute Carbon on the Evaluation of Dislocation Density in as Quenched Martensite by X-ray Diffraction

X-ray diffraction analysis is one of powerful tools on the dislocation analysis and this method can be applied reasonably for many metals with isotropic crystal structure such as bcc and fcc. In this study, modified Williamson-Hall analysis was applied for martensitic steels containing 0.006 – 0.26 mass% carbon and proved that the value of dislocation density increases with increasing the carbon content. However, martensitic steels containing solute carbon have bct structure characterized by different lattice constants on a-axis and c-axis. With increasing solute carbon, a-axis shrinks but c-axis is elongated. This leads to the peak séparation in an X-ray diffraction peak and causes an increase of the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) in the diffraction peak. This suggests that the value of dislocation density is over estimated due to the effect of peak separation in as quenched martensitic steels with solute carbon. It was found that the increment of apparent dislocation density Δρ' is expressed by the following equation as a function of the amount of solute carbon (mass%C), independent of the values of true dislocation density and the screw component of dislocation.