The intergranular strains in thermally and mechanically anisotropic Zircalo
y-2 with rod texture have been measured in situ under uniaxial tension alon
g the rod axis by neutron diffraction. An in-plane biaxial stress state was
developed in the grains as deformation proceeded. The tensors describing t
he stress state of the grains throughout the deformation process have been
determined experimentally in the natural crystallographic axes system. Afte
r 5% deformation, the stress tensor components of the grains, sigma(11) and
sigma(33)-stresses acting along the [a]-axes and [c]-axes lying in the tra
nsverse plane-are 230 +/- 20 MPa and -241 +/- 21 MPa, respectively. The ang
ular dependence of the initial thermal residual stress state and the final
deformed state have also been obtained. The elasto-plastic self-consistent
model has been used to simulate the experiments and exhibits agreement with
experiment. It appears that the introduction of basal slip {0001}[1210] co
nsiderably improves the agreement with experiment. (C) 1999 Acta Metallurgi
ca Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.