Skip to main content
  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI
  • PSI Research, Labs & User Services

Digital User Office

  • Digital User Office
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Search
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)

Hauptnavigation

  • Research at PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • Research Initiatives
    • Ethics and Research integrity
    • Scientific Highlights
    • Scientific Events
    • Scientific Career
    • PSI-FELLOW
    • PSI Data Policy
  • Research Divisions and LabsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Research with Neutrons and Muons
    • Photon Science
    • Energy and Environment
    • Nuclear Energy and Safety
    • Biology and Chemistry
    • Scientific Computing, Theory and Data
    • Large Research Facilities
  • Facilities and InstrumentsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Large Research Facilities
    • Facilities
    • PSI Facility Newsletter
  • PSI User ServicesOpen mainmenu item
    • User Office
    • Methods at the PSI User Facilities
    • Proposals for beam time
    • Proposal Deadlines
    • Data Analysis Service (PSD)
    • EU support programmes
  • New ProjectsOpen mainmenu item
    • SLS 2.0
    • IMPACT
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR

Digital User Office (mobile)

  • Digital User Office

You are here:

  1. PSI Home
  2. Labs & User Services
  3. NUM
  4. LNS
  5. NIAG
  6. Research and Development

Secondary navigation

Neutron Imaging and Applied Materials

  • People
  • What is Neutron Imaging ?
    • Neutron Imaging Setup
    • Neutron Physics
      • Neutron Interaction with Matter
      • Comparison to X-ray
    • Neutron Imaging Techniques and Methods
      • Neutron Imaging Detectors
      • Neutron Tomography
      • Dynamic Neutron Imaging
      • Advanced Neutron Imaging Techniques
  • Beamlines
  • Research and Development
  • Industrial Services
  • Gallery
    • Movies
    • Bronze Sculptures
  • Publications
  • News / Events
    • News Archive
  • Links

Research at Applied Materials Group

Additively manufactured gold cube [3]

Additive Manufacturing Assessed

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a technology that produces three-dimensional parts layer by layer from a material. A key concern in metal additive manufacturing is the density and structural integrity of a part formed. A great variety of processing parameters have influence on the final density, microstructure and residual stresses in a built part and thus they need to be optimized to avoid build failures such as porosity and cracks, but also geometrical distortions and faults of often complex structures as well as premature failure. Neutron imaging enables us to visualize and analyse such defects deep in the bulk of specimen, which allows to optimize build conditions, inform and develop simulations as well as sensors for printing technologies.

Read more
EBSD map

Tailoring microstructures with additive manufacturing

Engineering materials experience deformation during service, often in a cyclic nature. During the past decades, new materials compositions and new thermomechanical processing have emerged which have provided materials with enhanced strength, ductility and fatigue resistance. However, the recent advances in additive manufacturing, open new opportunities for realizing complex and optimized materials within a single component by manipulating the additive manufacturing process parameters.

Read more
Root tomography

Watch plants drink

The water balance in living plants serves a vital role from extracting water from the soil to transporting it to the shoot as well as throughout the plant and for sustaining transpiration. To fulfill these functions plants and their specific parts have a complex anatomical structure with varying cell layers of e.g. varying hydraulic conductivities. This behavior includes the rhizosphere, which is the soil fraction close to the roots in which the chemistry and microbiology are influenced by their growth, respiration, and nutrient exchange.

Read more
Tomographic reconstructions of the titanium cell high pressure with the liquid body of deuterated n-decane and methane phase for 1 bar

Hydrogen Economy – Samples Under Pressure

Hydrogen is the ultimate renewable energy carrier. The hydrogen cycle includes applications utilizing very high pressures. The investigations of matter (be it liquids for the transport or metal hydrides for hydrogen storage) under pressure, thus, contribute to the cornerstones for reaching the CO2 emission free energy goal.

Read more
 Imaging of the AutoStack-Core fuel cell (300 cm2 active area)

Tuning water balance in fuel cells

Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFC) generate clean electric power through electrohcemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen gas. PEFCs are considered as one of the powertrains in electric vehicles. The technical challeges of PEFCs (e.g., material degradation, mass transport limitation, and ionic conductivity) stem from an accmulation of product water in internal components. At the imaging beamlines of AMG at SINQ, we are obtaining maps of the water content evolution and distributions in operating PEFCs to enable technological optimisation and pioneer material development for improved performance, lifetime and cost reduction.

Read more
Figure 1.  Visualisation of magnetic domains in GOS  Steel sheet through dark-field contrast imaging

Hidden Domains

Electric steels are indispensible elements of electric machinery and constitute with about 12 million tons per year 95% of the produced soft magnetic materials. They are produced as GRO, grain oriented, and NOR, non-grain oriented steel sheets for applications with a well defined magnetisation direction, like in transformers, or isotropic magnetisation behavior as required in motors or generators, respectively. The key magnetic properties of these materials include their magnetic hysteresis, remanence, saturation and losses, all of which are tied to their domain structure. Thus, the design and conservation of advantageous domain structures throughout the production process of electric machines are of outstanding importance for high energy efficiency. Neutron imaging provides unique insights to the underlying domain structure as it can access the bulk even through the typical coatings that electrical steel sheets require for isolation between each other when assembled.

Read more
hydridesinzircaloys2.png

Hydrides and Embrittlement

Nuclear materials related to nuclear energy and safety are still of very high relevance and will remain of high importance for decades. Neutron imaging of nuclear and activated materials has a long tradition due to the penetration power and contrast of neutron attenuation including isotope sensitivity. The recently developed experimental infrastructure for high-resolution neutron imaging of highly activated samples will prove to be extremely useful tool for investigations of nuclear fuel claddings and other highly radioactive samples.

Read more
MakingLiquidMetalTransparent

Making Liquid Metals Transparent

Metals are vital for modern societies and for Europe`s key industries to manufacture accurate, customized parts for automotive, aerospace and healthcare applications. Today, metal production still relies largely on experience derived from a trial-and-error approach. Resource efficiency and other challenges demand a paradigm shift in metal production and new materials, e.g. metal matrix composites. The opacity of metals poses a main obstacle to elucidating metal characteristics during processing, phase changes or the impact of interventions.  

Read more
WaterUptakeInCrackedConcrete

Being Concrete

Concrete is one of the most applied materials on Earth and constitutes the basis of modern infrastructure. Cementitious materials are an effective, relatively inexpensive and abundant resource. However, the vast volume of concrete needed amounts to immense costs involved. Immense costs are also related to the maintenance of concrete structures and the quality and the optimization of concrete for specific applications. Neutron imaging are used for numerous research questions regarding the durability of concretes and other cementitious materials.

Read more
Fig1. Effect of laser shock peening (LSP) on a steel sample built by laser powder bed fusion (LBPF) additive manufacturing (AM)

Diffraction Contrast Imaging

Diffraction contrast neutron imaging [1] often referred to as Bragg edge imaging, is based on the wavelength dependent impact of neutron diffraction at crystal lattice planes on the transmission. A Bragg edge can be observed in the attenuation spectrum at a wavelength where for a specific crystal lattice parameter dhkl  the Bragg condition reduces to λ=2d as the diffraction angle reaches θ=90°. Thus, beyond such wavelength no Bragg scattering can take place this lattice plane family anymore and the transmission correspondingly increases sharply. This also implies, that for powder-like polycrystalline materials the Bragg edges directly measure the lattice spacings and allow identifying crystalline phases. The exact position of edges carries also information on lattice strains and the overall pattern can be analysed for other microstructural features such as grain size and texture variations. For single- or large grained oligo-crystals on the other hand diffraction contrast allows to index and map grains or orientation distributions [2]

Read more
Fig 2: Wetting of sand column by means of on-the-fly tomography.

The time aspect – On-the-fly tomography

Time is essential in many experiments, in particular, if processes are studied. We may want to how liquids move through porous media, quantify the shape of a solidification front. These are processes on the time scale of neutron imaging and have often been studied using time series of radiographs. The problem is that changes caused by the evolving process in many cases must be studied in three dimensions. Therefore, we need time-resolved tomography using methods like golden ratio and on-the-fly scans.

Read more
cruciform

Neutron diffraction under in-situ multi-axial loading

A key element for the validation of continuum plasticity models is their ability to model the mechanical behavior of materials under multiaxial loading states, which occur during operation or metal forming processes. It is thus essential to formulate the criteria to be implemented in micromechanical models, for which constitutive equations are now relying solely on a knowledgebase derived from uniaxial testing.

The neutron diffractometer POLDI features a unique multiaxial loading rig which allows multiaxial loading and strain path changes while neutron diffraction measurements are undertaken.  Utilizing the multiaxial machine at POLDI, groundbreaking insights into the mechanical behavior and deformation-induced transformations have been obtained the past year at the Paul Scherrer Institute.  

Read more

Sidebar

NUM Division-Scientific Highlights

Scientific Highligts from the Research Division NUM.


PSI User Facilities Newsletter

Current News from PSI photon, neutron and muon user facilities

PSI Scientific Reports

Archive 2006-2012. The Scientific Reports – containing accounts of research topics from all the different areas – provide an impression of the variety of subjects researched at PSI.


Scientific Advisory Committees

  • SINQ SAC
  • SμS SAC
  • CHRISP SAC
top

Footer

Paul Scherrer Institut

Forschungsstrasse 111
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Telephone: +41 56 310 21 11
Telefax: +41 56 310 21 99

How to find us
Contact

Visitor Centre psi forum
School Lab iLab (in German)
Center for Proton Therapy
PSI Education Centre
PSI Guest House
PSI Gastronomie (in German)
psi forum shop

Service & Support

  • Phone Book
  • User Office
  • Accelerator Status
  • PSI Publications
  • Suppliers
  • E-Billing
  • Computing
  • Safety (in German)

Career

  • Working at PSI
  • Job Opportunities
  • Training and further education
  • Career Center
  • Vocational Training (in German)
  • PSI Education Center

For the media

  • PSI in brief
  • Facts and Figures
  • Media corner
  • Media Releases
  • Social Media

Follow us: Twitter (in English) LinkedIn Youtube Facebook Instagram Issuu RSS

Footer legal

  • Imprint
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Editors' login