In Situ X-Ray Diffraction Study of Thermal Stability of Cu and Cu-Zr Samples Processed by ECAP

Abstract

X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies of ECAP (equal-channel angular pressing) materials were performed after annealing and by in-situ measurements in XRD high-temperature chamber for samples prepared by different number of passes and number of revolutions, respectively. Main attention was given to Cu and Cu-Zr samples. Significant dependence on number of passes was found for ECAP samples. In-situ measurements were focused not only on temperature dependence but also on time evolution of the diffraction line profiles. Evaluation in terms of dislocation densities, correlation and crystallite size and its distribution was performed by our own software MSTRUCT developed for total powder diffraction pattern fitting. Abnormal growth of some grains with annealing is well-known for copper and leads to the creation of bimodal microstructure. Therefore a special care must be given to the evaluation and a model of two Cu components (larger and smaller crystallites) was fitted to the data if an indication of some crystallite growth appears either in the XRD line profile shape or in two-dimensional diffraction patterns.