INTERGRANULAR STRAINS IN INCONEL-600 STEAM-GENERATOR MATERIALS

Engineering components are inhomogeneous on the scale of the grain siz e since the grains generally have different elastic and plastic proper ties depending on their crystallographic orientations. Constitutive eq uations describing the mechanical properties of materials in terms of the deformation state of the grains within it are needed to describe t he behaviour of structures using the finite element method. Neutron di ffraction provides a test of such constitutive models as the elasto-pl astic self-consistent (EPSC) model, because the elastic strains in all grain orientations inside a sample can be measured independently. In this paper the intergranular strains measured in tensile test coupons after uniaxial plastic deformation of +5.6% and -6.0% are presented as strain pole-figures for the (1 1 1), (0 0 2), (2 2 0) and (1 1 3) ref lections of the FCC structure. The results are compared with the predi ctions of the EPSC model, which has no adjustable parameters. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.