Beschreibung
Additive manufacturing methods such as laser powder bed fusion offer an enormous flexibility in the efficient design of parts. In this process, a laser locally melts feedstock powder to build up a part layer-by-layer. It is this localized processing manner imposing large temperature gradients, resulting in the formation of internal stress and characteristic microstructures. Produced parts inherently contain high levels of residual stress accompanied by columnar grain growth and crystallographic texture. On a smaller scale, the microstructure is characterized by competitive cell-like solidification with micro segregation and dislocation entanglement. In this context, it is crucial to understand the interplay between microstructure, texture, and residual stress to take full advantage of the freedom in design. In fact, X-ray and neutron diffraction are considered as the benchmark for the non-destructive characterization of surface and bulk residual stress. The latter, characterized by a high penetration power in most engineering alloys, allows the use of diffraction angle close to 90°, enabling the employment of a nearly cubic gauge volume. However, the complex hierarchical microstructures produced by additive manufacturing present significant challenges towards the reliable characterization of residual stress by neutron diffraction. Since residual stress is not the direct quantity being measured, the peak shift imposed by the residual stress present in a material must be converted into a macroscopic stress. First, an appropriate lattice plane must be selected that is easily accessible (i.e., high multiplicity) and insensitive to micro strain accumulation. Second, a stress-free reference must be known to calculate a lattice strain, which can be difficult to define for the heterogeneous microstructures produced by additive manufacturing. Third, an appropriate set of diffraction elastic constants that relate the lattice strain to the macroscopic stress must be known.
In this presentation, advancements in the field of residual stress analysis using neutron diffraction are presented on the example of the Ni-based superalloy Inconel 718. The effect of the complex microstructure on the determination of residual stress by neutron diffraction is presented. It is shown, how to deal with the determination of the stress-free reference. It is also shown that the selection of an appropriate set of diffraction elastic constants depends on the microstructure. Finally, the role of the crystallographic texture in the determination of the residual stress is shown.
