A Virtual Diffractometer For Creating Synthetic HEDM Images of Tessellated and Meshed Finite Element Polycrystals

Abstract: To assist in the planning of in situ loading, HEDM experiments by generating synthetic diffraction images of virtual samples in loaded and unloaded states. The user designates a target grain in the virtual sample and specifies the set of reflections for which images are to be generated. The code generates several intermediate images, including: (1) the points of intersection between the diffracted beam direction vector the detector plane; (2) reflection-dependent frequency distributions of the diffraction angle, $\omega$; and (3) plots of the diffraction volume-weighted intensity distributions for the specified set of reflections. The final sets of plots are facsimiles of pixelated detector images which take into account characteristics of specific detectors, including its pixel size and point spread behavior.