Effect of reference point selection on microscopic stress measurement using EBSD

It is important to evaluate microscopic stress distributions on the order of the grain size to clarify the deformation and fracture behavior of structural materials. In this study, the microscopic stress distribution of coarse-grained austenitic stainless steel during tensile testing was measured using a method that employs cross-correlation of the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) pattern, and the effect of the reference point selection on the measured stress was investigated. First, parameters that characterize the quality of the EBSD pattern measurement—namely, the image quality (IQ), confidence index (CI), and Fit—and the parameter that corresponds to the extent of the plastic deformation—the kernel average misorientation (KAM)—were used to determine the reference point. It was confirmed that the value of the microscopic stress measured using the EBSD-based approach is relative to the value of the stress state of the reference point. Second, multiple reference points were determined within a grain by considering only the location, and the stress distribution in the grain was evaluated using each of the reference points. The deviation of the measured stress was calculated from the averaged value for all the measured results using a certain reference point, and its relationship to parameters such as the IQ, CI, Fit, and KAM of the reference point used was investigated. It was demonstrated that the choice of parameters did not significantly affect the evaluation of the relative stress distribution within a grain. The results of this study therefore show that the selection of the reference point does not affect the measured stress distribution, as long as the evaluation is limited to the relative stress within a grain for the selected reference point.