Pulsed neutron spectroscopic imaging for crystallographic texture and microstructure

A time-of-flight (TOF) spectroscopic neutron imaging at a pulsed neutron source is expected to be a new material analysis tool because this method can non-destructively investigate the spatial dependence of the crystallographic and metallographic information in a bulk material. For quantitative evaluation of such information, a spectral analysis code for the transmission data is necessary. Therefore, we have developed a Rietveld-like analysis code, RITS. Furthermore, we have applied the RITS code to evaluation of the position dependence of the crystal orientation anisotropy, the preferred orientation and the crystallite size of a welded α-iron plate, and we successfully obtained the information on the texture and the microstructure. However, the reliability of the values given by the RITS code has not been evaluated yet in detail. For this reason, we compared the parameters provided by the RITS code with the parameters obtained by the neutron TOF powder diffractometry and its Rietveld analysis. Both the RITS code and the Rietveld analysis software indicated values close to each other, but there were systematic differences on the preferred orientation and the crystallite size.