Development of a non destructive characterisation technique for the 3D investigation of micro-heterogeneous structural materials

A non destructive characterisation technique, X ray tomography, has been developed in order to obtain 3D images of the interior of micro-heterogeneous materials with a high resolution. The X ray source is the ID 19 beamline at ESRF. Model and industrial materials have been successfully imaged with a resolution ranging from 1 to 6 µm3. Quantitative 3D data extracted from the reconstructed images give very valuable information on the microstructure of materials. An in situ tensile testing device has been developed in order to observe samples under load. Images of damage initiation and development under stress inside composite materials have been obtained