Investigation of microstructure within metal welds by energy resolved neutron imaging

Abstract

The recent development of bright pulsed neutron sources and high resolution neutron counting detectors enables simultaneous acquisition of a neutron transmission spectrum for each pixel of the image. These spectra can be used to reconstruct microstructure parameters within welds, such as strain, texture and phase composition through Bragg edge analysis, and in some cases elemental composition through resonance absorption analysis. In this paper we demonstrate the potential of energy-resolved neutron imaging to study the microstructures of two steel welds, where the spatial distribution of residual strain within the welds, as well as some information on the texture, are obtained with sub-mm spatial resolution. A friction stir weld of two steel plates and a conventional weld of two steel pipes were studied at pulsed neutron facilities, where a Δλ/λ resolution as low as 0.2% can be attained over a wide range of neutron wavelengths ranging from 0.5 Å to 8 Å.