A SOLUTE PEAK ASSOCIATED WITH THE GRAIN BOUNDARIES OF IRON CONTAINING A SMALL AMOUNT OF CARBON

Abstract
Some investigations of the effect of interstitial solute additions on the grain boundary peak were made in iron. At the higher temperature side of the iron grain boundary peak, a "carbon solute peak" appeared for iron containing 0.0002 wt% and 0.0005 wt% carbon. The activation energy for grain boundary relaxation in pure iron is 49±3 kcal/mol find that for the "carbon solute peak" is equal to 85±4 kcal/mol. The solvent peak disappeared as the amount of carbon increased up to 0.0027 wt%. Therefore, it seems easy to explain the results given by Miles and Leak that no solute peak appeared together with the solvent peak in iron containing carbon and there was an abrupt change on the curve of variation of activation energy for grain boundary damping of iron with carbon content. The mechanism of solute peak was discussed.