scope:

This part of EN 623 specifies a manual method of making measurements for the determination of volume fraction of major phases in advanced technical ceramics using micrographs of polished and etched sections, overlaying a square grid of lines, and counting the number of intersections lying over each phase. The method applies to ceramics with one or more distinct secondary phases, such as found in Al2O3/ZrO2, Si/SiC,or Al2O3/SiCw. If the test material contains discrete pores, these can be treated as a secondary phase for the purpose of this method provided that there is no evidence of grain pluck-out during polishing being confused with genuine pores. Secondary phase volume fractions or porosity present at levels of less than 0,05 are subject to considerable error and potential scatter in results. A larger number of micrographs than the minimum of three is normally needed to improve the consistency and accuracy of the results. This method assumes that the selected regions of a prepared cross-section are statistically representative of the whole sampled section. Some users of this European Standard can wish to apply automatic or semiautomatic image analysis to micrographs or directly captured microstructural images. This is currently outside the scope of this European Standard, but some guidelines are given in Annex C.