Thermo-Mechanical Processing in a Synchrotron Beam

Abstract:

Well collimated, high energy X-rays of 90 keV from synchrotron sources have been used to study metals undergoing plastic deformation in-situ, in real time and in the bulk of the materials. The spottiness of poorly illuminated Debye-Scherrer rings showing reflections from individual crystallites is analyzed to obtain grain statistics, mosaic spread and orientation. Upon cold deformation, coarse grained materials show fingerprints of sub-grain formation, grain rotation, grain refinement and the evolution from a single grain into the asymptotic texture. Heating of metals under continuous load drives the observation through the regimes of phase transformation and grain relationships therein, grain coarsening, dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization. The paper points out these different phenomena which were observed without precedence.