Lattice strains in gold and rhenium under nonhydrostatic compression to 37 GPa

Using energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction techniques together with the theory describing lattice strains under nonhydrostatic compression, the behavior of a layered sample of gold and rhenium has been studied at pressures of 14-37 GPa. For gold, the uniaxial stress component t is consistent with earlier studies and can be described by t = 0.06 + 0.015P where P is the pressure in GPa. The estimated single-crystal elastic moduli are in reasonable agreement with trends based on extrapolated low-pressure data. The degree of elastic anisotropy increases as alpha, the parameter which characterizes stress-strain continuity across grain boundaries, is reduced from 1.0 to 0.5. For rhenium, the apparent equation of state has been shown to be strongly influenced by nonhydrostatic compression, as evidenced by its dependence on-the angle psi between the diffracting plane normal and the stress axis. The bulk modulus obtained by inversion of nonhydrostatic compression data can differ by nearly a factor of 2 at angles of 0 degrees and 90 degrees. On the other hand; by a proper choice of psi, d spacings corresponding to quasihydrostatic compression can be obtained from data obtained under highly nonhydrostatic Conditions. The uniaxial stress in rhenium over the pressure range from 14-37 GPa can be described by t = 2.5 + 0.09P. The large discrepancy between x-ray elastic:moduli and-ultrasonic data and theoretical calculations indicates that additional factors such as texturing or orientation dependence of t need to be incorporated to more fully describe the strain distribution in hexagonal-close-packed metals. [S0163-1829(99)02845-5].