Principal preferred orientation evaluation of steel materials using time-of-flight neutron diffraction

徐 平光; Zhang, S.-Y.*; Harjo, S.; Vogel, S. C.*; 友田 陽*

Quantum Beam Science (Internet), 8(1), p.7_1 - 7_13, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.3390/qubs8010007

Comprehensive information about the microstructure and crystal structure evolution during the preparation/production processes of various materials is in great demand in order to precisely control the microstructure morphology and the preferred orientation characteristics for the excellent strength-ductility-toughness balance of advanced engineering materials. isothermal annealing experiments of cold rolled 17Ni-0.2C (mass %) martensitic steel sheets were carried out by using the TAKUMI and ENGIN-X time-of-flight neutron diffractometers, respectively. The inverse pole figures based on full-profile refinement were extracted to roughly evaluate the preferred orientation features along three principal sample directions of investigated steel sheets using the General Structure Analysis System (GSAS) software with built-in generalized spherical harmonic functions. The consistent rolling direction (RD) inverse pole figures from TAKUMI and ENGIN-X have confirmed that the time-of-flight neutron diffraction has high repeatability and statistical reliability, revealing that the principal preferred orientation evaluation of steel materials is available through 90 TD ND (transverse direction normal direction) rotation of the investigated specimen on the sample stage during two neutron diffraction experiments. Moreover, these RD, TD and ND inverse pole figures before and after in situ experiments were compared with the corresponding inverse pole figures recalculated respectively from the MUSASI-L complete pole figure measurement and the HIPPO in situ microstructure evaluation. The similar orientation distribution characteristics suggested that the principal preferred orientation evaluation method can be applied to in situ microstructure evolution of bulk orthorhombic materials and spatially resolved principal preferred orientation mappings of large engineering structure parts.

Gradient residual strain measurement procedure in surface impacted railway steel axles by using neutron scattering

Zhou, L.*; Zhang, H.*; Qin, T. Y.*; Hu, F. F.*; 徐 平光; Ao, N.*; Su, Y. H.; He, L. H.*; Li, X. H.*; Zhang, J. R.*; et al.

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 11 Pages, 2024/00

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11661-024-07352-5

High-speed railway S38C axles undergo surface induction hardening for durability, but are susceptible to fatigue cracks from foreign object impact. The neutron diffraction method was employed to measure the residual strain in S38C axles, obtaining microscopic lattice distortion data, for the gradient layer at a depth of 8 mm under the surface. The results showed that after induction-hardening, the microscopic lattice distortion had a gradient distribution, decreasing with the distance from the surface. However, in the case of impacting speed of 600 km/m, the average microscopic lattice distortion increased with the distance from the surface, reaching a maximum augmentation of 55 pct. These findings indicate a strong experimental basis, and improve our understanding of the relationship between macroscopic residual stress and decision-making, in regard to operation and maintenance.

Cryogenic impact fracture behavior of a high-Mn austenitic steel using electron backscatter diffraction and neutron Bragg-edge transmission imaging

Wang, Y. W.*; Wang, H. H.*; Su, Y. H.; 徐 平光; 篠原 武尚

Materials Science & Engineering A, 887, p.145768_1 - 145768_13, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2023.145768

A unique impact fracture behavior is found in a high-Mn austenitic steel (24Mn-4Cr-0.4C-0.3Cu) in this work. The steel exhibits concurrent twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) effect and the transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) effect. By analyzing the load-deflection curves recorded during Charpy impact testing, the resistance to crack initiation and propagation is quantified from the absorbed energy. The high-Mn steel demonstrates good resistance to crack initiation at 273 K and 77 K. However, as the temperature decreases from 273 K to 77 K, there is an accelerated transition from stable crack growth to unstable crack growth during impact, resulting in the deterioration of resistance to crack propagation. The plastic deformation of the impact-tested samples, especially in the region close to the crack-path profile was quantitatively analyzed using neutron Bragg-edge transmission (BET) imaging. The deformation zones, divided by using the width of the 200 Bragg edge, exhibit good agreement with the impact absorbed energy characteristics obtained from dynamic load-deflection curves. Moreover, the unstable growth transition point was roughly determined on the impact-tested sample. Then, the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique is employed to examine the deformation microstructure along the crack-path in the impact-tested samples. The results revealed the dual roles of TRIP effect in impact toughness of the high-Mn steel. On one hand, the TRIP effect plays a positive role in improving resistance to crack initiation and propagation. On the other hand, the excessive accumulation of brittle /'-martensite caused by the enhanced TRIP effect at 77 K leads to quasi-cleavage fracture, thereby playing a negative role. Finally, we discussed the prominent toughening mechanisms associated with the TWIP and TRIP effects, which greatly impact the impact fracture behavior.

Corrosion fatigue crack growth behavior of a structurally gradient steel for high-speed railway axles

Ao, N.*; Zhang, H.*; Xu, H. H.*; Wu, S. C.*; Liu, D.*; 徐 平光; Su, Y. H.; Kang, Q. H.*; Kang, G. Z.*

Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 281, p.109166_1 - 109166_14, 2023/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2023.109166

Considering the complex service environments that high-speed railway axles are subjected to, the fatigue crack growth (FCG) behavior of a structurally gradient axle steel with different pre-crack depths both in air and corrosive medium was investigated at a frequency of 5 Hz. The results indicated that in the high region, FCG rate was dramatically accelerated by corrosion, but the gap narrows as decreased. The accelerated corrosion FCG rate was a comprehensive result of the acceleration effect of the anodic dissolution, hydrogen-enhanced localized plasticity and the retardation effect of corrosion-induced crack-tip blunting. Despite the fact that the corrosion resistance gradually decreased as the pre-crack depth increased, the FCG rate in the corrosive medium gradually decreased. This was because fatigue loading played a more important role than corrosion in accelerating the corrosion FCG rate.

Abnormal grain growth; A Spontaneous activation of competing grain rotation

Liss, K.-D.*; 徐 平光; 城 鮎美*; Zhang, S. Y.*; 行武 栄太郎*; 菖蒲 敬久; 秋田 貢一*

Advanced Engineering Materials, 9 Pages, 2023/00

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adem.202300470

In polycrystals, grains with certain orientations grow at high temperatures at the expense of grains with other unfavorable orientations. Grain growth involves a variety of situations and mechanisms that make experimental study, modeling, and understanding extremely complex. Normal grain growth occurs in a self-similar manner, with curved grain boundaries serving as the driving force and a parabolic growth law that scales up the grain size by the square root of time. More complex growth forms include boundary pinning of precipitates and other boundaries, topological transitions that alter driving forces, grain coalescence and anomalous grain growth, but these are considered "erratic" and their initiation is an open question in modern research, without a simple experimental approach on how they should be studied. Here, we show that grain rotation upon coalescence is spontaneously activated between one grain and a favorable neighbor, through the necessary diffusive mass transport at further boundaries of the same grain leading to their activation and a competitive "erratic" reorientation in a zigzag way, while other grains in the matrix remain stable. After two grains have eventually coalesced, their surrounding boundaries are still activated leading to further rotation and growth, filling the missing puzzle stone in thermodynamic theory between normal and abnormal growth, the latter stating that abnormal growth only takes place when the size of the growing grain is already large. Prerequisites and postulates of abnormal grain growth are based on advantageous texture, grain boundary mobility, enhanced diffusion kinetics and coalescence, which can be well explained by our observations. Moreover, our observations have been enabled through a novel experimental approach using the white-beam X-ray Laue diffraction method in bulk transmission mode on a polycrystalline.

Deformation texture of bulk cementite investigated by neutron diffraction

足立 望*; 上野 春喜*; 諸岡 聡; 徐 平光; 戸高 義一*

Materials, 15(13), p.4485_1 - 4485_7, 2022/07

https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15134485

Understanding of deformation mechanism of cementite such as slip plane are quite important to reveal and improve mechanical property of steels. However, deformation behavior of cementite has not been well investigated because of the difficulty of sample preparation having single phase cementite structure. In this study, by fabricating bulk single phase cementite samples using the method developed by the authors, deformation texture formed by uniaxial compression was investigated using both electron back scatter diffraction and the neutron diffraction. The fabricated sample had a random texture before the compression. After applying compressive strain of 0.5 at 833 K, (010) fiber texture was formed along compressive axis. It has been suggested from this trend that the primary slip plane of cementite is (010).

The Fe(n,)Fe cross section from the surrogate ratio method and its effect on the Fe nucleosynthesis

Yan, S. Q.*; Li, X. Y.*; 西尾 勝久; Lugaro, M.*; Li, Z. H.*; 牧井 宏之; Pignatari, M.*; Wang, Y. B.*; Orlandi, R.; 廣瀬 健太郎; et al.

Astrophysical Journal, 919(2), p.84_1 - 84_7, 2021/10

https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac12ce

The long-lived Fe (with a half-life of 2.62 Myr) is a crucial diagnostic of active nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way galaxy and in supernovae near the solar system. The neutron-capture reaction Fe(n,)Fe on Fe (half-life=44.5 days) is the key reaction for the production of Fe in massive stars. This reaction cross section has been previously constrained by the Coulomb dissociation experiment, which offered partial constraint on the E1 -ray strength function but a negligible constraint on the M1 and E2 components. In this work, for the first time, we use the surrogate ratio method to experimentally determine the Fe(n,)Fe cross sections in which all the components are included. We derived a Maxwellian-averaged cross section of 27.53.5 mb at = 30 keV and 13.41.7 mb at = 90 keV, roughly 10%-20% higher than previous estimates. We analyzed the impact of our new reaction rates in nucleosynthesis models of massive stars and found that uncertainties in the production of Fe from the Fe(n,)Fe rate are at most 25. We conclude that stellar physics uncertainties now play a major role in the accurate evaluation of the stellar production of Fe.

Multiple wavelengths texture measurement using angle dispersive neutron diffraction at WOMBAT

徐 平光; Liss, K.-D.*

Quantum Beam Science (Internet), 5(2), p.11_1 - 11_14, 2021/06

AA2020-0801.pdf:11.28MB

https://doi.org/10.3390/qubs5020011

In contrast to conventional angle dispersive neutron diffractometers with a single-tube detector or a small-size linear position-sensitive detector, the WOMBAT diffractometer at Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) is equipped with a large-area curved position-sensitive detector, spanning 120 for the scattering angle 2 and 15 for the azimuth , respectively. Here, WOMBAT was employed to establish a texture measurement environment for complex textured samples, through measuring neutron diffractograms at two selected wavelengths on a typical reference sample of martensite-austenite multilayered steel sheet. All neutron patterns were simultaneously Rietveld analyzed using the software, Materials Analysis Using Diffraction (MAUD). The shorter wavelength enabled to collect the martensite diffraction peaks 110, 200, 211, 220, 310, 222 as well as the austenite diffraction peaks 111, 200, 220, 311, 222, 331 diffraction peaks simultaneously by pre-setting the detector range to 2 = 30150. The longer wavelength enabled to separate the overlapping strong martensite peak 110 and austenite peak 111 more reliably. Moreover, the detector panel division along the vertical direction covers a good stereographic coverage in the azimuthal angle. Such combination of multiple wavelength neutron diffraction combined with simultaneous Rietveld texture analysis was confirmed much valuable to realize high precision measurements for complex textured samples at an orientation distribution function (ODF) graticule of 5, and in a much shorter beam time than the conventional angle dispersive method.

In-house texture measurement using a compact neutron source

徐 平光; 池田 義雅*; 箱山 智之*; 高村 正人*; 大竹 淑恵*; 鈴木 裕士

Journal of Applied Crystallography, 53(2), p.444 - 454, 2020/04

AA2019-0242.pdf:2.9MB

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576720002551

In order to improve the instrumental accessibility of neutron diffraction technique, the emerging compact neutron sources and in-house neutron diffractometers as a good complementary way have caused wide attention while their analysis precision seems problematic for the practical application. As a challenging project, the RIKEN accelerator-driven compact neutron source (RANS) was employed to establish the technical environment for texture measurement, and the recalculated pole figures and the orientation distribution function (ODF) of an interstitial-free (IF) steel sheet obtained from RANS were compared with the results from another two neutron diffractometers well-established for texture measurement. Moreover, the parameter "square integration of ODF difference" originally for evaluating the numerical error between the measured and simulated textures was generalized here to examine the reliability of RANS texture measurement. These quantitative comparisons revealed that the precise neutron diffraction texture measurement at RANS has been realized successfully and the following technical optimizations are much valuable, including the thickness selection of polyethylene moderator, the sample-to-detector distance, the BC shielding sheets for the reduced background noise, and the fine region division of the neutron detector panel. Moreover, the Rietveld texture analysis improves the texture reliability through avoiding the unfavorable influence of the uncertain diffraction intensity involved in the low counting, long wavelength incident neutrons at large scattering angles. Above technical results may accelerate the development of other easily accessible engineering materials evaluation techniques using compact neutron source, and also help to improve the data-collecting efficiency for various time-sliced scattering experiments at large neutron facilities.

Microstructural features and ductile-brittle transition behavior in hot-rolled lean duplex stainless steels

高橋 治*; 渋井 洋平*; 徐 平光; Harjo, S.; 鈴木 徹也*; 友田 陽*

Quantum Beam Science (Internet), 4(1), p.16_1 - 16_15, 2020/03

https://doi.org/10.3390/qubs4010016

The characteristics of texture and microstructure of lean duplex stainless steels with low Ni content produced through hot rolling followed by annealing were investigated locally with electron backscatter diffraction and globally with neutron diffraction. Then, the ductile-brittle transition (DBT) behavior was studied by Charpy impact test. It is found that the DBT temperature (DBTT) is strongly affected by the direction of crack propagation, depending on crystallographic texture and microstructural morphology; the DBTT becomes extremely low in the case of fracture accompanying delamination. A high Ni duplex stainless steel examined for comparison, shows a lower DBTT compared with the lean steel in the same crack propagating direction. The obtained results were also discussed through comparing with those of cast duplex stainless steels reported previously (Takahashi et al., Tetsu-to-Hagane, 100(2014), 1150).