A Dr.ª Marivone Gusatti e ao Dr. Humberto Gracher Riella da UFSC pelas discussões e amostras de ZnO fornecidas para a realização deste trabalho.Ao grande amigo Doutorando Antonio Carlos Oliveira da Silva do IFUSP pela inestimável ajuda desde os tempos da graduação, pelas conversas, desabafos, risadas e a revisão de parte deste trabalho.
ABSTRACTThe objective of this work was to develop and implement a methodology of X-ray Line Profile Analysis (XLPA) for the study and determination of the mean crystallite sizes and microstrains in materials. A computer program was developed to speed up the treatment of diffraction peaks and perform the deconvolution utilizing the Stokes method to correct the instrumental contribution in the X-ray diffraction measurements. The XLPA methods used were the Scherrer, Williamson-Hall and Single-Line methods, which can be called real space methods, and the Fourier space method of Warren-Averbach. Furthermore, considering a mathematical modelling it was possible to calculate the crystallite size distribution, considering the log-normal distribution and spherical crystallites. It was possible to demonstrate the proposed theory can provide reliable results evaluating a dispersion parameter. The methodologies described above were applied in two distinct materials: in the alloy Zircaloy-4 and in ZnO.Keywords: Warren-Averbach method, X-ray line profile analysis, mean crystallite size, microstrain, crystallite size distribution Fourier Analysis.