Mechanical elastic constants and diffraction stress factors of macroscopically elastically anisotropic polycrystals: the effect of grain-shape (morphological) texture

The effect of the grain-shape (‘morphological’) texture of a polycrystal on the mechanical elastic constants and diffraction (X-ray) stress factors is investigated. To this end, the Eshelby–Kröner grain interaction model originally devised for polycrystals consisting of spherical grains is extended to ellipsoidal grain morphology. Results obtained for the mechanical elastic constants show that a polycrystal consisting of ellipsoidal grains with their principal axes aligned along common directions (i.e. when an ideal grain-shape texture occurs) is macroscopically elastically anisotropic. Also the diffraction (X-ray) stress factors are affected by the grain-shape texture; they reflect the macroscopic elastic anisotropy by resulting in nonlinear so-called sin²?ψ plots. In general, a grain-shape texture can have a moderate effect on the mechanical elastic constants and a pronounced effect on the diffraction elastic constants, depending on the crystal symmetry and single-crystal elastic anisotropy.