Neutron Study of Internal Stress in Materials and Components

The development and current state of instrumentation for the neutron diffraction study of internal stresses has been considered. During the last 15 years, significant progress has been achieved in the experimental techniques based on stationary and pulsed neutron sources. Specialized stress diffractometers have been developed, which make it possible to solve many engineering and technological problems, as well as problems of fundamental materials science. Two Russian neutron stress diffractometers are considered: FSD on the pulsed reactor IBR-2 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and STRESS on the IR-8 reactor at the Natioanl Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute.” Examples of studies performed on these devices are presented.