Characterization of grain boundary character distribution in cemented carbides via a stereological method

This paper reports the interdisciplinary approach of simultaneous use of a stereological method, namely the five parameter analysis (FPA) method and the grain boundary character distribution (GBCD) in cemented carbides. There are six major aspects: i) the background and motivations of the interdisciplinary approach, ii) the principle of the FPA method, iii) orientation texture of boundary planes with specific misorientations via ?(?g, n) mode in cemented carbide, iv) orientation texture of habit planes regardless of misorientations via ?(n) mode in cemented carbide, v) application of the FPA method to serial cemented carbide samples and vi) boundary sort methods before using the FPA method. The work aims at presenting beneficial reference for studying structural and distribution features of special coincidence site lattice (CSL) boundaries in a statistical manner, and in turn increasing the knowledge about the structure-property relationship in cemented carbides.