QUANTITATIVE MICROSCOPY 4 4 9

intercepted by the line TV or the number of grain boundaries intersecting the line P
can be counted accurately. The line length chosen should produce from 50 to 150
intersections or interceptions per field at the chosen magnification to obtain an
accurate estimate of PL or NL. A wide variety of test-line patterns are possible
with either directed (straight) lines, which can also measure grain elongation, or
concentric circles, to obtain a measurement free of anisotropy effects.
If a set of parallel or randomly oriented lines are used and one counts the
number of grains intercepted, the ends of the lines usually end within a grain
rather than exactly at the grain boundary. A count is made of the grains
intercepted by the lines, and if the ends of the lines end within the grains, each end
point is counted as one-half an interception. If grain-boundary intersections with
the line elements are counted, which is more commonly done, grain-boundary
intersections are counted as one point, triple-point intersections are counted as
IV2 points, and tangent hits are counted as one-half point. These counting rules
pertain to single-phase structures. Procedures for intercept grain size analysis of
two-phase structures are described later. For a single-phase grain structure,
counting of the number of intercepted grains N or the number of grain-boundary
intersections P yields equivalent results that differ at most by one.
For single-phase structures NL = PL, and either counting method can be used
to estimate G. These intercept values are calculated as follows:
NL =

LjiM

and

PL =

P
LTSM

(6-27)

where LT is the total line length_and M is the magnification. The mean intercept
length (mean lineal intercept) L 3 is given by the following relationship:
1
1
U = =
NL
PL

(6-28)

This relationship only holds for single-phase microstructures. Columns 4 and 5 of

Table 6-5 show the relationship between ASTM grain size and L 3 and the number
of intersections per millimeter. Alternatively, G can be calculated as follows
G = [-6.6457 log L3] - 3.298
G = [-6.6353 log L 3 ] - 1 2 . 6

(L3, mm)
(L3, in)

(6-29)
(6-30)

The average grain diameter d from the Jeffries method is about 12.5 percent
greater than the mean lineal intercept L 3 for the same grain size. If enough fields
are measured, the grain size by the intercept method is accurate to one-tenth a
unit of G.
The relationship between the mean lineal intercept and the ASTM grain size
was first shown in ASTM E89. This specification suggested making intercept
counts on two sets of perpendicular lines to yield two estimates, NLi and JVL2t, to
t NLi and NL1 in this case are calculated using the test length in inches at M rather than using the
line length at IX.