Investigation of relationships between grain structure and inhomogeneous deformation by means of laboratory-based multimodal X-ray tomography: strain accuracy analysis

Background: The internal strain distribution developing during plastic deformation is important for understanding the mechanical properties of polycrystalline materials. Such distributions may be determined by the microstructural feature tracking method. However, the strain accuracy and the sources of uncertainty of this method are not well quantified yet. Objective: Evaluate the accuracy of local strain determination based on laboratory-based multimodal X-ray tomography measurements. Methods: The plastic deformation behavior of a particle-contained fully recrystallized Al-4mass%Cu alloy was characterized during in-situ tensile testing using absorption contrast tomography to reveal marker particles and diffraction contrast tomography to reveal the grain structure. Results: It was found that the accuracy in strain measurement is inversely proportional to the particle distance, whereas it is independent of the particle size, and the accuracy is not biased by grain boundaries. As an illustrative example, the preliminary analysis of the microstructure-strain relationships reveals significant strain differences both between and within individual grains. Conclusions: The results document the validity and limitations of the microstructural feature tracking method for local strain measurements using a laboratory X-ray source, are of importance for local strain analysis in general and may be considered as an alternative to other methods, e.g. digital image correlation. The measurements allow evaluation of effects of the grain microstructure on the local strain development during plastic deformation. By a preliminary analysis of the strain difference between two selected grains, it is suggested that the grain shape and crystallographic relationships between neighboring grains are of importance for the development of local strains.