Dendritic Misorientation and Characterisation using Time of Flight 3D Energy Resolved Imaging and Diffraction

The purpose of this proposal is to investigate a novel Neutron inspection technique used to determine the angle and intensity of dendrite misorientation within a Rolls-Royce CMSX-4 Ni-base Superalloy, High Pressure Trent 700 turbine blade by Time of Flight 3D energy resolved imaging and diffraction. Misorientation is intolerable because grain boundaries drastically reduce creep performance and cannot be removed by heat treatment processes. It is therefore important to be able to characterise the level of misorientation, within such a safety critical component, accurately and rapidly.The new technique will offer insights into misorientation development in Single Crystal castings, improve the accuracy and reliability of defect prediction models and improve on current turbine blade NDT defect characterisation techniques.