Ultrasonic measurement of the Kearns texture factors in zircaloy, zirconium, and titanium

Texture, developed during the processing of zirconium and zirconium alloys, e.g,, ZIRCALOY, plays an important role in determining the properties and performance of the resultant structural components. Extending the work done on cubic metals, ultrasonic velocity measurements were used to nondestruct ively characterize the texture in hexagonal sheet metals. A theory is devel oped relating the texture coefficients W-LMN (L less than or equal to 4, fo und in an expansion of the crystallite orientation distribution function (O DF) in terms of generalized spherical harmonics) to industrially measured K earns factors, which predict the fraction of basal poles aligned in a parti cular sample reference direction. Ultrasonic characterization of texture ha s been performed on three sheets of zirconium (one pure, two ZIRCALOY) and on one sheet of titanium. These results are compared to the Kearns factors, measured by X-ray diffraction (for the two ZIRCALOY sheets) and to the WLM N value measured by neutron diffraction (for the pure zirconium and the tit anium). Results show that ultrasonics predict both the orientation distribu tion coefficients (ODCs) and the Kearns factors very well.