Development of a Portable XRD Grain Orientation Analyzer

Directionally solidified nickel superalloys are commonly used in turbine blades for high temperature aircraft and space propulsion engines and land-based, high-efficiency power generating plants. The casting of these parts does not always assure perfect crystal grain orientation which is critical for performance under high temperature conditions. Efficient and direct measurement of grain orientation in aircraft turbine blades are now of paramount importance in view of recent engine failures and aircraft mishaps. There does not exist a method to measure grain orientation non-destructively. Conventional chemical etching and visual inspection or laboratory based x-ray analysis is unsuitable for fast and accurate turbine blade quality control. X-Ray Optical Systems (XOS) of East Greenbush, NY proposes to develop a compact, low power, portable x-ray diffraction analyzer that can directly and non-destructively measuring residual stress turbine blade crystal grain orientation in factory production lines or in the field. This is enabled by novel, proprietary polycapillary x-ray optics and highly stable and reliable X-Beam x-ray sources developed by XOS which have been successfully applied to in-line measurements of crystal texture of superconducting thin films and on-line measurements of phase distributions in steel plating factories.