mXRD - A New Ultraportable X-ray Diffraction Instrument

The residual stresses (RS) present in manufactured components, assemblies and structures can significantly improve or diminish their useful life. An accurate understanding of the RS state of failure critical components is therefore key to understanding how such components will perform in service. In the scientific and engineering community, x-ray diffraction (XRD) is known to be the ultimate in accuracy for the measurement of RS. This makes sense because, to be truly useful, RS measurements need to be sufficiently accurate to enable sound actionable engineering decisions thus XRD is generally the method of choice for many RS measurement applications. The complex geometries inherent to a wide range of aerospace structural components have made many RS measurements difficult or impossible to perform with conventional XRD instrumentation, which has been historically bulky and often limited to measurements in the laboratory. To take full advantage of the highly accurate and reliable XRD method, the ultimate instrument has been developed – mXRD – a new, ultraportable XRD instrument. It was specifically developed to: address the need for measurements in tight spaces, verify peening (shot peen, LSP, UIT, etc.), verify spit sleeve cold expansion via 100% nondestructive inspection to ensure every hole was expanded correctly, verify sustained RS for SCC nondestructively, verify sustained load while the platform is on the tarmac, verify effectiveness of heat treatment (before and after nondestructively), measure AM parts to ensure RS equivalency, track fatigue by quantifying RS relaxation and fatigue damage within service usage, and to support return to service, retire or rework decisions. With unsurpassed spatial resolution up 0.2 mm and the ability to map RS gradients, the new mXRD is poised to revolutionize the measurement of RS in the aerospace industry.