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Surface integrity through tomographic reconstruction
[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2015.
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Abstract
The capability of high resolution, low energy backscattered electron microscopy has been extended to enable serial sectioning in the chamber of a conventional scanning electron microscope. For the first time, this technique, employed in a commercially available 3View facility, is used to reveal the structure of materials in 3D on the sub-micron scale. The distribution of pigments in protective organic coatings is quantified from the reconstructed 3View images and a correlation between spreadability and nearest neighbour distance of the pigment clusters is drawn. X-ray tomography is used to perform an ex-situ leaching experiment of a corrosion resistant organic coating. The depletion of inhibitor material after exposure to a corrosive environment is observed. The 3View is used to obtained additional images at higher resolution. The results indicate that inhibitor material is transported through pre-existing porous networks or through the porous networks that form following depletion of the material itself. Image based models of porous sintered silver films are produced from data obtained in the 3View facility which are used to validate the dependence of elasticity on the pore fraction.