In-situ High-Energy Diffraction Microscopy Study of Zirconium Under Uni-axial Tensile Deformation

The ability to predict a material's performance while being subject to complex thermo-mechanical processing is of great importance for material design and implementation in the real world. A material's behavior and performance has been shown to depend on its underlying microstructure. Recent advances in x-ray-based characterization of bulk microstructures while in service has lead to validation and constraints of models used for predictive responses. Specifically the use of Near-Field High Energy X-ray Diffraction Microscopy (nf-HEDM) with Forward Modeling Method (FMM) to obtain spatially-resolved microstructures and microtextures has been a break-through in fully characterizing bulk metals in-situ. New advanced data processing methods have been applied to nf-HEDM diffraction images to assist in fidelity of microstructure reconstructions returned via the FMM. Here we present the development and results of one study of pure Zirconium as it is subjected to several states of uni-axial loading. The local feature tracking, including tensile twin nucleation and void formation, as well as global evolution is discussed.