BEER

The continuous development of advanced structural materials and novel manufacturing processes are key for European manufacturing industry to stay competitive and ensure clean transport and clean energy generation. This includes the development of sustainable material and processing solutions protecting natural resources.

For instance, in order to stay competitive, automotive, railway, and aerospace industries require continued development and intelligent use of high-performance materials with the aim of increasing operation safety while reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Structural materials are multiphase and multiscale; they are exposed to extremely complex processing procedures and often operate in highly demanding environments.

Future successful research efforts will require a cradle-to-grave approach, i.e. understanding micro/nanostructure and residual stress evolution during processing and their role in the mechanisms that determine material and component performance. To date, progress has been based on empirical understanding, and component lifing assessments are effectively curve-fitting exercises demanding large safety margins. It is becoming increasingly clear that further progress, and hence keeping a competitive edge, can only be achieved by replacing empirical data with physical and mechanistic understanding. This will ensure the development of both novel and improved uses of existing materials, by employing physically informed analyses on the process and lifing models. BEER will be instrumental in this development, as it will move analytical processing and performance research from post-mortem analysis to yet unparalleled in situ or in operando analysis.

Neutron diffraction is already a well-established tool for characterization of engineering materials and components (internal stresses, textures, deformation processes). Moreover, there is a growing materials engineering community using neutron facilities worldwide, which correlates with the development of new engineering beamlines.

The main purpose of the BEER diffractometer is, on the one hand, to enable time-resolved in situ and in operando investigations of structural materials during processing and exposure to simulated service environments. On the other hand, the instrument offers the possibilities for state-of-the-art technologies for efficient and precise characterization of residual stresses, crystallographic textures and phase compositions in structural materials.

The concept of BEER for ESS is based on a vast improvement in data acquisition times compared to current materials engineering flagship instruments, flexible detector cover and complex environments. It consists mainly in:

• adopting state-of-the-art technologies for efficient and precise residual stress and microstructure/crystallographic texture characterization of structural materials and
• developing new strategies for time-resolved in situ/in operando investigations of structural materials during processing and exposure to simulated service environments that become possible with the high intensity at ESS.

Thus, new opportunities will be offered to material engineers for following micro- and nanostructures, textures, and internal stresses evolving at industrially relevant temperatures, strain rates, and complex loading conditions to investigate and develop thermomechanical processing procedures as well as deformation mechanisms during service conditions.