Application of microstructure sensitive design to structural components produced from hexagonal polycrystalline metals

In this paper, we present the first successful design case studies in the application of microstructure sensitive design (MSD) methodology to optimize performance of structural components made from polycrystalline metals with hexagonal close-packed (hcp) crystal lattices. It is demonstrated that the underlying spectral framework of the MSD methodology facilitates an efficient consideration of the complete set of crystallographic textures in the design optimization. In order to accomplish this task a number of important enhancements had to be introduced to the MSD framework. The most significant enhancement is in the mathematical description of the design space, i.e. the texture hull. The advantages of the new approach described in this paper are illustrated with two specific design case studies involving different assumptions of symmetry at the sample scale. In both case studies presented, it is seen that the overall performance is strongly influenced by the crystallographic texture in the sample. Furthermore, the relevant property closures and performance maps accounting for the complete set of textures are also depicted.