Decarburization occurs when carbon atoms at the steel surface interact with the furnace atmosphere and are removed from the steel as a gaseous phase (1-8). Carbon from the interior will then diffuse towards the surface, that is, carbon diffuses from a region of high concentration to a region of low concentration to continue the decarburization process and establish the maximum depth of decarburization (MAD).

Because the rate of carbon diffusion increases with temperature when the structure is fully austenitic, the MAD will increase as the temperature increases above the Ac₃. For temperatures in the two phase region, between the Ac₁ and Ac₃, the process is more complex. The diffusion rates of carbon in ferrite and in austenite are different and are influenced by temperature and composition.

The Canyon Express Pipeline System (CEPS) was started up in November 2002 in the Gulf of Mexico, south of Louisiana. It is owned by six oil companies and collects hydrocarbons from ten wells at depths of ~6100, 7100 and 7200 feet.

The flow line system consists of two 12” diameter gas pipelines (“east” and “west”) connected to a header system, which carries the hydrocarbons 57 miles north to a fixed platform, the Canyon Station, in about 500 feet of water. Tankers come into the Canyon Station to fill up and carry the hydrocarbons to refineries. Just west of the “east” flow line is a 2.875” diameter, X-70 line pipe that carries methanol from the station to the header where it is injected to prevent freezing of the hydrocarbons. To the left of the methanol line is a 6” diameter umbilical line containing electrical power and hydraulic lines.

Aside from the well-known grain size measurement techniques using either the planimetric methods of Jeffries or Saltykov, or the intercept method of Heyn, Hilliard and Abrams, one can measure the grain size through a count of grain-boundary triple point intersections within a known area through the use of Euler’s law. This technique has rarely been used but it should be possible to do such a count by image analysis. In general, measurements based on point counts (0 dimensional) are less subject to errors than lineal measurements (one-dimensional) which are less subject to error than areal measurements (two-dimensional). By George Vander Voort

If a specimen has been cold worked, or it did not recrystallize after hot working, the grains will not be equiaxed and extra care must be taken when assessing the specimen’s grain size. Always test a longitudinally oriented plane first to determine if the grains are, or are not, equiaxed.

A low-carbon sheet steel was tested in the as-received condition (reportedly annealed), and after cold reductions in thickness of 12, 30 and 70%. Above 70% reduction, it can be quite difficult to reveal the ferrite grain boundaries well enough to get a precise measurement. Measurements were made on the three principal planes using the Jeffries planimetric method, the Abrams three-circle intercept method and the intercept method using directed parallel test lines.

The two previous articles covered methods for measuring grain size that have been incorporated into ASTM E112 for many years. The Jeffries planimetric method was introduced into standard E2 in 1917 – Committee E-4’s first standard. Zay Jeffries was a founding member of the committee and had published several articles about the method, which he learned from his PhD advisor, Albert Sauveur, the dean of American metallographers.

This method is precise, but a bit slow for production work because the grains must be marked off as they are counted manually. The method, however, can be modified for image analysis work. The second method was the Heyn intercept method, which was developed in Germany in 1903 and was mentioned briefly in ASTM E2, but not described in detail, when published in 1917. The intercept method was later modified by John Hilliard and then by Halle Abrams. The Abrams three-circle intercept method is used in production work as the intercepts (or intersections) do not need to be marked off on a template when counted. But, the writer recently has introduced the Saltykov rectangle to E112 as it can yield accurate grain size measurements down to fewer counts per field than the other two methods. As with the Jeffries method, the Saltykov method does require marking of the grains for accurate counting, although it, too, can be used by image analysis.

When ASTM standard E 2 was published in 1917, ASTM Committee E-4 on Metallography’s first standard, it described the planimetric method for measuring grain size based upon publications by Zay Jeffries, a founding member of E4; but, E 2 only briefly mentioned the intercept method developed in Germany in an appendix at the end of the standard.

The intercept method suggested by Heyn in 1903 [1] is considerably faster to perform manually which has made it popular, despite the fact that there is no direct mathematical connection between the mean lineal intercept length and G. Both straight lines and circles have been used as templates, plus other shapes.