The use of high energy X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source to study stresses in materials

In situ study of hydride precipitation kinetics and re-orientation in Zircaloy using synchrotron radiation

“…As illustrated in Fig. 3, the experiments were conducted in transmission geometry, using 80 keV X-rays (k = 0.015 nm) with a beam size of 0.3 mm  0.3 mm [24]. The high X-ray intensities available at the beamline allow the observation of the hydride diffracted intensity as the sample is heated or cooled.…”

Strain evolution of zirconium hydride embedded in a Zircaloy-2 matrix

“…High-energy X-ray diffraction measurements were conducted at the 1-ID beamline at the Advanced Photon Source (Argonne National Laboratory, IL) [15]. Tensile and compressive loads were applied to the specimens using a custom built stepper motor driven load frame [16,17].…”

Hydride precipitation kinetics in Zircaloy-4 studied using synchrotron X-ray diffraction

“…This beamline is equipped with an amorphous silicon Ge detector that allows fast data collection rates thus enabling the study of the time-dependent process of hydride precipitation. The incident X-ray beam is focused to a rectangular shape of 200 Â 200 lm [11], which means that a volume of 10 7 lm 3 (and thousands of Zr grains) is examined. In the beamline, an optical furnace can heat the samples up to 900°C while recording X-ray diffraction data.…”