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When characterizing residual stresses by neutron diffraction, neutron absorption is always a competing process. It leads to the emission of high-energy, so-called prompt gamma radiation, which in turn produces positrons within the bulk of the specimen. The decay of these antiparticles and the resulting annihilation radiation are influenced by material properties like defects. Plastic deformation and resulting increase of the dislocation density leads in the neutron scattering case to an increase in the mosaic spread of the BRAGG reflections, while on the other hand, the 511 keV line of the annihilation radiation is also measurably broadened. Suitable collimation can assure that the information gathered by neutron diffraction comes from about the same gauge volume as the information from positron annihilation. It is the aim of this project to investigate the correlation between the width of the BRAGG reflections and the S-parameter, by which the width of the annihilation line is described as a function of the degree of plastic deformation. In this way, more can be learned about a material, since during strain measurements by diffraction additional information is available through simultaneous gamma-ray spectroscopy.

The diffractive determination of single-crystal elastic constants using polycrystalline samples represents the inverse problem to the (`direct') experiment of conventional diffractive residual-stress analysis. Both problems are rather sensitive to the quality of the experimental data and to the applied micro-mechanical models. This especially holds for the case of samples for which texture cannot be neglected. The current methods in the field are briefly described and specific difficulties are discussed. The key relations for the BPGeo micro-mechanical model (in which a texture-weighted geometric mean is applied in the stress analysis) are given for the general case. The necessity for careful analysis of the reliability of the results of planned experiments using theoretically modelled `experimental' data obtained with the applied micro-mechanical models is demonstrated for a set of line-shift data from a uniaxial tensile experiment on steel. The possibility of resolving the so-calledd0problem using the original line-position data for a structure refinement is demonstrated.

Solid state information from coherent neutron scattering can be extracted from transmission experiments on polycrystalline materials. The transmission technique has been applied to dynamic structural and phase change investigations and will be developed to cover the fields of strain mapping and structural tomography.

The influence of phase errors on the accuracy of the neutron diffraction peak parameters is discussed. It is shown that a constant phase error leads to both a distortion of the shape and a shift of the center of gravity of a reflection peak. A method was developed which takes the phase error into account and corrects for the peak shift.

Three different modes of operation have been realized for the Fourier-RTOF diffractometer FSS at the GKSS Research Center which produce peak shapes that are either a Gaussian or the first or second derivative of it. The triangular shape of the modulation function of the neutron intensity as well as the rectangular shape of the optical pickup signal cause deviations from the ideal shapes of the reflection peaks. Distortions caused by the constraints on the upper limit of the modulation frequency cause specific oscillations, which are superimposed on the diffraction peaks. The characteristic properties of the three modes of operation are discussed.

The Bragg edges appearing in the neutron-transmission spectra of a polycrystalline material represent its coherent-scattering response at 2θ=180°. Structural information such as texture, phase content or strain may be derived from the intensity and position of these edges. Transmission diffractometers have been recently developed at both LANSCE and ISIS and used for studying the dynamics of phase transformations and strain imaging, respectively. The incident neutron spectra vary due to the different neutron moderators and flight paths used in the two instruments. This paper reports a comparative study of the two instruments and their analysis software.

Recent progress in neutron scattering for industrial purposes is reviewed. The relevant fields of interest are small-angle scattering, high-resolution diffraction, texture determination, reflectometry and radiography. Potential users are encouraged to address themselves to one of the neutron scattering centers given in the Appendix.

Low-energy neutron transmission diffraction has been successfully demonstrated to be a powerful experimental method to investigate changes in crystal structure development down to the millisecond range. Bragg edge diffraction measurements thus can be the basis for future experiments like strain radiography, determination of the strain-rate dependent elastic properties of engineering materials, temporal development of phase changes, structural properties of materials under extreme environmental conditions like high pressure or temperature states. At high instantaneous neutron bursts current-mode detection can be used, which enables both transient and stroboscopic measurements. Progress has been made in rapid data acquisition and analysis as well as temperature measurement by resonance doping.

The neutron intensity transmitted through polycrystalline material exhibits sudden well defined increases whenever the neutron wavelength ceases to fulfil the Bragg coherent scattering condition for a specific subset of lattice planes. Since in the transmitted beam all diffracted neutrons are absent, the so-called Bragg edges build up very rapidly, because diffraction of neutrons into the full solid angle contributes to their presence. High peak-intensity neutron bursts may be detected using the current-mode technique, opening up the possibility to do both transient and stroboscopic measurements. This new method is relevant to different research areas, like transient phase transformation, melting and solidification, dynamic stress influence or materials under extreme environmental conditions. Progress has been made in rapid data acquisition and analysis as well as temperature measurement by resonance doping.

Time resolved phase transition and strain experiments have been performed on the millisecond time scale using a Bragg-edge transmission technique that has been developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The precision with which lattice parameters can be determined from edge positions is sufficient to perform high-resolution strain measurements in uniaxial stress.

Fourier type correlation spectrometers at reactors allow strain measurements by neutron time-of-flight diffractometry. For instruments of this type intensity and resolution are independent. Data acquisition is done by on-line correlation, which is possible in the reverse-timeof-flight Fourier (RTOF) mode. A spectrometer designed for strain measurements is now operating at the 5 MW FRG-1 research reactor at GKSS Geesthacht.

The transmission of polycristalline materials in a white neutron spectrum shows sharp edges as a function of neutron wavelength or time-of-flight. They correspond to the breakdown of the Bragg interference condition for those sets of lattice planes which scatter by 180 degrees. Materials stresses as well as texture will influence the position and shape of the edges. Transmission measurements may be favourable for a number of experimental tasks.

The Kiel University fast-chopper has been simulated by a Monte Carlo model taking into account the geometric outlines of the system, neutron leakage through rotor edges and neutron beam divergence. The calculated results have been verified by experimental investigations. Special emphasis was laid on the very sensitive dependence of the measured neutron time-of-flight spectra on the rotor displacement from the collimator axis, which is also well reproduced by the calculations. Therefore the model is regarded to be authentic to derive a better estimate for the resolution function of the spectrometer, which is needed for measurement tasks like neutron resonance spectroscopy and shape analysis. The FORTRAN programs permit achievement of the best spectrometer adjustment to a given experimental problem. They may be modified to calculate different system geometries.