Assessment of deformation behavior of polycrystalline aluminum using diffraction-amalgamated grain-boundary tracking (DAGT) technique

A novel experimental method has been developed by amalgamating a pencil beam X-Ray diffraction (XRD) technique with the recently developed grain boundary tracking (GBT) technique. XRD and GBT are both non-destructive in-situ analysis techniques for characterizing bulk materials, which can be carried close to the point of fracture. DAGT provides information about individual grain orientations and 1-micron-level grain morphologies in 3-dimensions (3D) together with high-density local strain mapping. An Al-3 mass % Cu model alloy was used to investigate its deformation behavior under tension. The morphology of the grains was determined by the X-ray microtomography (XMT) imaging and the liquid metal wetting technique, after which GBT provided an accurate description of the position and morphology of all the grains in a region of interests. Diffraction spots in the XRD experiments were related to grains, making it possible to describe crystallographic orientation of all the grains. It has been revealed that deformation is localized at both microscopic and meso-scopic levels. Inhomogeneous deformation was observed in each individual grain. In addition, a group of a few grains coordinately interacts and specific grain boundaries thereby exhibit intense strain localization. Hydrostatic tension was also observed at quadruple junction points and its mechanism was analyzed.