Microtexture determination in Fe-Si alloy sheets by etch pitting. Comparison with the electron back-scattering pattern technique

The EBSP (electron back-scattering pattern) technique is used to verify individual crystallographic orientations measured by the etch-pit method in an Fe-Si sheet. These orientations are directly determined from geometrical parameters characterizing the etch pits. 92 orientations determined with these two methods are compared and it appears difficult to obtain very good accuracy on the determination of crystallographic orientations with the etch-pit method. However, although this error obviously remains during a statistical analysis of texture or of grain boundaries, the etch-pit method remains very interesting for qualitative or semi-quantitative studies.