Compression Analysis of Materials via in situ X-ray Computed Tomography

Abstract

X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) is an analytical technique used in materials science to non– destructively characterize features in a variety of materials like polymers, metals, composites, and explosives. The non-destructive imaging allows for the analysis of features (voids and cracks), which give a fundamental understanding of material characteristics.This is more effective when combinedwith a load cell to expose the material to realworld stimuli to understand material characteristics and morphological behavior in situ. This study focused on using in situ X-ray CT to understand the material characteristics and morphological changes of sugar prills and a lattice under a compressive load. Sugar prills are used as a surrogate to analyze explosives in a safer and less expensiveway. The sugar prills were found to be brittle and shattered when compressed via the CT renderings and the stress/strain information. The lattices are used as both the basis and ground truth comparison for the development of models to predict the morphological and material characteristic changes that occur as a result of loading. The lattice was found to have weak regions due to low polymer interlayer fusion in these regions during the printing process. It was also found that under the initial compression the lattice demonstrated elastic behavior as its cellular structure was intact until the cellular structure started to collapse causing yielding in the lattice. Additionally, the analysis of the sugar prills and lattice demonstrate the information that can be gleaned from in situ X-ray CT experiments that would be lost in traditional pre- and post-mortem X-rayCT analysis.