Determination of composition, residual stress and stacking fault depth profiles in expanded austenite with energy-dispersive diffraction

A methodology is proposed combining the scattering vector method with energy dispersive diffraction for the non-destructive determination of stress- and composition-depth profiles. The advantage of the present method is a relatively short measurement time and avoidance of tedious sublayer removal; the disadvantage as compared to destructive methods is that depth profiles can only be obtained for depth shallower than half the layer thickness. The proposed method is applied to an expanded austenite layer on stainless steel and allows the separation of stress, composition and stacking fault density gradients.

► The scattering vector method is combined with energy dispersive diffraction. ► The method aims at non-destructive simultaneous determination of stress and composition. ► A separation of the stacking fault density is proposed. ► Depth profiling is obtained for nitrogen expanded austenite.