Three-dimensional grain resolved strain mapping using laboratory X-ray diffraction contrast tomography: theoretical analysis

Laboratory diffraction contrast tomography (LabDCT) is a recently developed technique to map crystallographic orientations of polycrystalline samples in three dimensions non-destructively using a laboratory X-ray source. In this work, a new theoretical procedure, named LabXRS, expanding LabDCT to include mapping of the deviatoric strain tensors on the grain scale, is proposed and validated using simulated data. For the validation, the geometries investigated include a typical near-field LabDCT setup utilizing Laue focusing with equal source-to-sample and sample-to-detector distances of 14 mm, a magnified setup where the sample-to-detector distance is increased to 200 mm, a far-field Laue focusing setup where the source-to-sample distance is also increased to 200 mm, and a near-field setup with a source-to-sample distance of 200 mm. The strain resolution is found to be in the range of 1–5 × 10⁻⁴, depending on the geometry of the experiment. The effects of other experimental parameters, including pixel binning, number of projections and imaging noise, as well as microstructural parameters, including grain position, grain size and grain orientation, on the strain resolution are examined. The dependencies of these parameters, as well as the implications for practical experiments, are discussed.