Further Improvement of the RITS Code for Pulsed Neutron Bragg-edge Transmission Imaging

The RITS code is a unique and powerful tool for a whole Bragg-edge transmission spectrum fitting analysis. However, it has had two major problems. Therefore, we have proposed methods to overcome these problems. The first issue is the difference in the crystallite size values between the diffraction and the Bragg-edge analyses. We found the reason was a different definition of the crystal structure factor. It affects the crystallite size because the crystallite size is deduced from the primary extinction effect which depends on the crystal structure factor. As a result of algorithm change, crystallite sizes obtained by RITS drastically approached to crystallite sizes obtained by Rietveld analyses of diffraction data; from 155% to 110%. The second issue is correction of the effect of background neutrons scattered from a specimen. Through neutron transport simulation studies, we found that the background components consist of forward Bragg scattering, double backward Bragg scattering, and thermal diffuse scattering. RITS with the background correction function which was developed through the simulation studies could well reconstruct various simulated and experimental transmission spectra, but refined crystalline microstructural parameters were often distorted. Finally, it was recommended to reduce the background by improving experimental conditions.