Characterizing texture in polycrystalline materials by ultrasonic waves

Abstract

A method for characterizing texture from measurements of ultrasonic wave velocities is proposed. In polycrystalline aggregates, ultrasonic wave velocities are strongly affected by orientation distribution coefficients (ODCs), which are usually used to describe the degree of preferred grain orientation in textured materials. In this work, velocities of longitudinal and transverse waves propagating into aluminum alloy 6061 were measured under pure shear, simple shear and uniaxial tension. From the measured ultrasonic wave velocities, the ODCs W 400 and W 420 were calculated to infer the deformation-induced texture. The predicted pole figures, obtained using ultrasonic velocities, were in good qualitative agreement with the finite element polycrystal model analyzed pole figures.