Due to their superb mechanical properties and high specific mass, tungsten heavy alloys are used in demanding applications, such as kinetic penetrators, gyroscope rotors, or radiation shielding. However, their structure, consisting of hard tungsten particles embedded in a soft matrix, makes the deformation processing a challenging task. This study focused on the characterization of deformation behavior during thermomechanical processing of a WNiCo tungsten heavy alloy (THA) via the method of rotary swaging at various temperatures. Emphasis is given to microstrain development and determination of the activated slip systems and dislocation density via neutron diffraction. The analyses showed that the grains of the NiCo2W matrix refined significantly after the deformation treatments. The microstrain was higher in the cold swaged sample (44.2 × 10⁻⁴). Both the samples swaged at 20 °C and 900 °C exhibited the activation of edge dislocations with {110} or {111} slip systems, and/or screw dislocations with slip system in the NiCo2W matrix. Dislocation densities were determined and the results were correlated with the final mechanical properties of the swaged bars.

The paper investigated the residual strain and stress distribution, microstructure, and macro-texture along the transverse direction of commercially pure titanium grade 2 samples prepared by the CONFORM ECAP technique. This method belongs to the severe plastic deformation methods; hence, it could be assumed that residual stress fields would be present in the work-pieces. Residual stresses cannot be directly measured; thus, neutron diffraction measurements, Electron back-scatter diffraction (EBSD) investigations, and local X-ray macro-texture measurements were performed in different regions of the sample to determine the data for the residual stress calculation. The calculation was based on the modified Kröner model. Neutron diffraction strain scans and residual stress calculations revealed that symmetrical residual strain and stress gradients with compression character were present in the axial and hoop direction after one and two passes. Asymmetric distribution of the residual strains and stresses remained after the third pass of the CONFORM ECAP. EBSD investigations showed that after the first pass, significant grain refinement occurred; however, further passes did not cause any dramatic grain refinement. X-ray texture measurements revealed that local macro-texture was dependent on the number of passes of the CONFORM ECAP and on the investigated area in the samples.

Advanced thermomechanical hot rolling is becoming a widely used technology for the production of fine-grained spring steel. Different rapid phase transformations during the inductive heat treatment of such steel causes the inhomogeneous mixture of martensitic, bainitic, and austenitic phases that affects the service properties of the steel. An important task is to assess the amount of retained austenite and its distribution over the cross-section of the inductive quenched and tempered wire in order to evaluate the mechanical properties of the material. Three different analytical methods were used for the comparative quantitative assessment of the amount of retained austenite in both the core and rim areas of the sample cross-section: neutron diffraction—for the bulk of the material, Mössbauer spectroscopy—for measurement in a surface layer, and the metallographic investigations carried by the EBSD. The methods confirmed the excessive amount of retained austenite in the core area that could negatively affect the plasticity of the material.

The paper outlines the capability of X-ray diffraction (XRD) for evaluation of real structure changes and residual stresses (RS) on cross-section of advanced thick welds due to the welding of ferromagnetic plates. The results of neutron diffraction describe a three-dimensional state of RS and also verify previous assumptions of RS redistribution as a result of the surface preparation for determination 2D maps measured by XRD.

The two-axis diffractometer SPN-100 at the Center of Accelerators and Nuclear Analytical Methods (CANAM) in Řež, is a neutron diffraction instrument dedicated to residual stress analyses in polycrystalline materials, it has recently been equipped with a new two-dimensional position sensitive detector (2D-PSD) and a six-axis robotic arm for sample positioning. Recent results of strain/stress distribution measurements with the upgraded tools are presented. The measured materials are made of C-Mn unalloyed steel used for spherical storage tank. Welding-induced residual stresses have direct influence on ductility and toughness of both weld metal and heat affected zone of the weld area, which affect the service life time of structures. Normal, transversal and longitudinal components of the stresses obtained in the vicinity of the butt weld from a spherical storage tank were measured by neutron diffraction at CANAM.

High-temperature ceramic compound Al ₅ C ₃ N belongs to the scarcely studied Al–C–N system. It was originally reported as an ordered compound in noncentrosymmetric space group P 6 ₃ mc and described as a nanolaminate with an –Al ₂ C–AlN–Al ₂ C ₂ – stacking sequence. The recently reported structural disorder in the related compound Al ₄ SiC ₄ led us to question this proposed structure for Al ₅ C ₃ N and investigate the possibility of a disordered structure in the centrosymmetric space group P 6 ₃ / mmc . In the present work, we employed different synthesis routes to maximize the yield and quality of the desired phase, and applied a variety of techniques to probe the Al ₅ C ₃ N crystal structure. Our single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis clearly indicates that noncentrosymmetric space group P 6 ₃ mc must be rejected. From a joint refinement of single-crystal X-ray and neutron powder diffraction data, the occupancies of C and N were refined at two sites in P 6 ₃ / mmc resulting in the stacking sequence –Al ₂ C–Al(C/N)–Al ₂ (C/N) ₂ –. Furthermore, DFT calculations show that a centrosymmetric disordered structure described in a supercell has the lowest energy, 0.2 eV per formula unit, relative to the previously reported P 6 ₃ mc structure. The calculated band structure shows both direct and indirect bandgaps, which leads to implications for the physical properties. Finally, STEM analysis provides additional evidence that the crystal structure of Al ₅ C ₃ N is better described in centrosymmetric space group P 6 ₃ / mmc .