Effect of the gold remodeling preparation method on the microstructure and mechanical behavior of steel

Abstract

AbstractThe application of gold speckles on a polished surface is a successful technique for improving digital image correlation (DIC) contrast in scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. In the process of creating the gold speckles, the material is subjected to elevated temperatures for prolonged times. As a consequence, not all materials are suitable for the gold speckled method to improve the contrast for DIC measurements during an in-situ SEM tensile test. In this letter, the effect of gold remodeling on two different steels is investigated. These steels are a dual-phase (DP) steel and a ferrite–pearlite steel (NVE36). The results demonstrate that the temperature these steels are subjected to during gold remodeling will influence the tensile behavior of the DP steel while the NVE36 steel is unaffected by the heat treatment. As a result, we can conclude that the gold remodeling method for creating contrast in SEM images may affect the microstructure. However, the effect of these changes depends on the material at hand and will vary from material to material.