Representative microstructures for two-dimensional computational studies of ultrasonic wave propagation in titanium alloys
Author(s)
Yeoh, Wei Yi
Lan, Bo
Lowe, Michael JS
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Macrozones in Ti–6Al–4V are a likely cause of reduced fatigue lives of aero-engine components. Whilst past research has demonstrated great potential for ultrasonic testing to characterize macrozones via attenuation, backscatter and velocity, the fundamental physical understanding of the ultrasound-material interactions is hindered by the complexity of the microstructures and the difficulties in manufacturing and fully characterizing samples with varying degrees of macrozones. In this study, we present important developments towards generating realistic synthetic macrozone models in finite element (FE) simulations which incorporate the complete hierarchical microstructures as revealed by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) scans. This involves first the extraction of grain statistics from a two-dimensional EBSD micrograph, based on which representative hierarchical microstructures of both morphologies and crystallographic texture are then synthesized in two dimensions. The synthetic models are calibrated against the original statistics and validated using FE wave propagation models to study the wave behaviours, where potential causes of loss of fidelity are analysed and discussed. Our hope is that with continued development and expansion to three-dimensional, this synthetic EBSD approach, where every detail of the representative microstructures is accessible, will lay the foundation for systematic investigation of the complex wave-macrozone interactions and better detection and characterization of macrozones.
Date Issued
2025-10-01
Date Acceptance
2025-07-15
Citation
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2025, 481 (2323)
ISSN
1364-5021
Publisher
The Royal Society
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Volume
481
Issue
2323
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
20240776
Date Publish Online
2025-10-01