Energy selective neutron radiography in material research

Energy selective neutron radiography was performed to describe a complex structure in polycrystalline materials. Experiments were performed with currently the highest energy and spatial resolutions achieved simultaneously, by employing a double crystal monochromator for selecting narrow energy bands from the initially polychromatic neutron beam and the neutron absorbing scintillator screen coupled with the cooled CCD camera as a detection system. It was shown that the detailed structure of the welded steel sample can be visualized and quantified by performing energy selective neutron imaging in the cold energy range, where elastic coherent scattering dominates the total cross section of the sample, showing characteristic Bragg edges. With the maps of crystallographic orientations over the sample area of similar to 2x2 cm(2) and thickness similar to 11.2 mm, obtained directly from radiographs, the complex structure was energy resolved with a spatial resolution of similar to 50 mu m.