Identification of microscale strain fields from in-situ SEM images of a pearlitic steel using DIC

Preprint, 2014

By using a standard type of DIC framework two series of \textit{in-situ} SEM images (1200x and 2000x) of a pearlitic steel are analyzed. The variations of the intensity field corresponding to the morphological variations (cementite lamellae embedded in a ferrite matrix) of the material are used as a natural speckle. Two traceability indicators are proposed which can be combined to a quality measure of the subsets. These indicators are the foundation of a proposed method that can be used to identify high-quality subsets within a domain of interest. The accuracy of the employed framework is evaluated using synthetically deformed images. Finally, the possibility to correlate the obtained results to variations of the microstructure are investigated.