Texture analysis in cubic phase polycrystals by single exposure synchrotron X-ray diffraction

Abstract

We discuss the possibility of determining orientation distribution function (ODF) of cubic phase polycrystals from single exposure Debye-Scherrer diffraction data by a systematic numerical simulation. The fundamental zone of cubic phase crystals is discretised as 5°× 5° × 5° cubic cells, and the aim is to find out those preferred orientations represented by the cells centres which cannot be determined by single exposure Debye-Scherrer diffraction data. Two simulated ODFs corresponding to two different types of linear combination of single preferred orientations are used to validate if the method is suitable for more complicated textures. A data processing routine as well as experimental procedure that enable texture evaluation in metallic cubic phase polycrystals by single exposure high energy monochromatic synchrotron X-ray diffraction with area detector is presented. MTEX is used to estimate ODFs from both single exposure and multi-exposure 2D diffraction patterns. An extruded tungsten wire and a copper cylinder machined from a rolled plate are used to illustrate the whole method. Careful error comparison is made between the ODFs obtained from single exposure and multi-exposure data. Besides, all the diffraction patterns are processed by MAUD to provide a comparison to the MTEX approach, and good agreement is seen between ODFs produced by MAUD and MTEX.