Abstract
Alloy specimens oxidised to produce thick (> 200 nm) oxide scales can be studied by making replicas of the surface of a metallographic section by a technique which also extracts small particles of oxide. Working details are followed by an example of the application of the technique to a typical oxidation problem. It is shown that the replicas give greatly improved resolution in both imaging and electron-probe analyses. The high post-breakaway, rates of oxidation of Fe/100% Cr are shown to be associated, not with gross cracking, but with rapid grain-boundary diffusion of iron in the layer of chromium-containing spinel immediately next to the alloy, and the variations in rate with varations in oxide grain size.
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