Neutron diffraction of steel corrosion using a custom-made flow cell at IMAT

Corrosion is major challenge to many industries such as oil and gas, transportation, manufacturing industries. Unexpected failures and leakages of corroded industrial infrastructure may lead to accidents and risks to human life. To study this complex phenomenon and to gain better understanding of the corrosion mechanism on surface and sub surface of steel, neutron imaging combined with diffraction is currently under development. For this study, a flow cell is used to monitor and analyse the process in real time. We have built a custom flow-cell for tomography and diffraction analysis and have collected tomography data on IMAT but have not yet had the opportunity to test the cell for neutron diffraction. We would like to use one of the IMAT diffraction modules without radial collimator, to characterize our new corrosion cell for neutron diffraction, using previously corroded samples to complement existing neutron imaging data. We request rapid access beamtime to collect diffraction data to finalise one publication in which we link imaging and phase composition, and to successfully finalise the IMAT-Leeds PhD project work (ending on June 2025). We kindly request beamtime rapid access in the next cycle starting from Feb 2025.