A new apparatus for measuring mechanical properties at moderate confining pressures in a neutron beamline

Abstract

A simple pressure vessel suitable for use at room temperature has been developed which allows neutron diffraction data to be collected from cylindrical samples of up to 10 mm diameter, at confining pressures of up to 160 MPa, whilst they are also being deformed in compression by the application of a uniaxially symmetric load. The vessel has been commissioned on the ENGIN-X beamline at the ISIS neutron facility (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, UK). The commissioning results show that neutron diffraction data of quality equivalent to that obtained using an identical experiment geometry at room pressure can be acquired using the pressure vessel with only about a factor of two increase in count times.