Stress corrosion cracking behaviour of 2091 Al—Li alloy in sulphate and chloride containing solutions

Abstract

The stress corrosion cracking resistance of 2091 Al—Li alloy in underaged, and in peak aged condition was investigated in chloride solutions with or without sulphate addition using both the static load technique and the slow strain rate technique. It is shown that the underaged material is more resistant than peak aged material. Sulphate additions to chloride solutions increase the stress corrosion cracking susceptibility. Metallographic cross-section observations show the simultaneous occurrence of other kinds of corrosion: generalised. corrosion, pitting corrosion, intergranular corrosion, and exfoliation corrosion. It appears that stress corrosion cracking susceptibility increases as the extent of intergranular corrosion decreases.     

Laser brazing of alloy 600 with precious filler metals

Abstract

The diode laser brazing of Ni base heat resistant alloy with precious filler metals has been conducted using the tandem beam for preheating and brazing. A couple of 1 mm thick plates of alloy 600 (Inconel 600) were butt brazed using Au–18Ni, Ag–10Pd and Ag–21Cu–25Pd filler metals of 0·5 mm diameter with a brazing flux. Sound butt joints which were free from brazing defects such as porosity and lack of penetration could be obtained at brazing clearances of 0·1–1·5 mm. The tensile strength of the braze joint produced using Ag–Pd filler metal increased with decreasing brazing clearance and reached ～70% of the base metal strength at a brazing clearance of 0·1 mm while those obtained by using Au–Ni and Ag–Cu–Pd filler metals were comparable with the base metal strength at any clearances between 0·1 and 1·5 mm. The laser brazing technique could be successfully applied to the brazing of Ni base superalloy to attain a joint with high performance and reliability.     

Powder metallurgy of Udimet 720 for nuclear industry application: optimisation of the alloy,mechanical testing and modelling

Abstract

A specific treatment to produce powder metallurgy (PM) alloy 720 meeting the high temperature creep requirements for turbine discs in the future high temperature reactor is proposed. The resulting microstructure consists of large grains and grain boundaries that are uncorrelated with prior particle boundaries. The tensile and low cycle fatigue properties measured are in the range observed for cast and wrought (C&W) alloy 720 with the same precipitation state. The creep resistance is significantly increased compared with classical PM alloy 720, and approaches that of C&W alloys. This improvement is believed to be due to the reduction of damage sites at the grain boundaries and to a low secondary creep rate. A model has been developed that can reproduce the observed behaviour in relation to metallurgical variables.     

Evolution and analysis of γ′ rafting during creep of single crystal nickel base superalloy

Abstract

By means of TEM observation and finite element analysis, an investigation has been made into the directional coarsening of the γ′ phase for a single crystal nickel base superalloy with [001] orientation during creep at 1040°C. The results show that the strain energy change related to the elastic strain is to be the driving force for γ′ rafting. The extruded strain of the lattice in the cuboidal γ′ interfaces results in a supersaturation of the elements Ta and Al of larger atomic radius. The extrusion or expansion strain in the lattice of the cuboidal γ′ planes may repel or trap these atoms to promote the directional growth of the γ′ phase into a needle-like raft structure along the direction parallel to the stress axis under an applied compression stress, or into a meshlike raft structure along the direction perpendicular to stress axis under applied tensile stress. The normal direction of the expanding lattice is supposed to be the one in which the γ′ rafts grow. The rate of γ′ rafting is enhanced by increasing viscoplastic flow in the γ matrix and elastic strain in the γ′ phase. Therefore, there is a smaller rate of growth under compressive than under tensile stress as a result of the smaller expansion strain and viscoplastic flow occurring in the former.     

New method to diffusion bond superalloys

Abstract

A new method for diffusion bonding nickel base and cobalt base superalloys has been developed, which is based on non-chemical oxide removal before the bonding process. Using this method, diffusion bonds were produced in nickel base and cobalt base superalloys with 'virtually invisible' bond interfaces and compositions very close to the bulk alloys. The bonding time required is about 1 h and the results of severe mechanical tests of the bonded samples, including directionally solidified (DS), single crystal and dissimilar superalloys, are very promising. The new oxide removal method is very rapid, does not require the use of any sophisticated equipment and is not a costly process. The high temperature properties of bonded samples are currently being investigated. European and USA patents have been applied for and the details of this new method are to be published in the future.     

Hot Corrosion Behavior of CM 247 LC Alloy in Na2SO4 and NaCl Environments

Hot corrosion studies of CM 247 LC alloy werecarried out in pure sodium sulfate, as well as sodiumchloride and sodium sulfate mixtures of differentconcentrations at various temperatures. A crucible test was employed to study the suitability of CM 247LC as a gas turbine blade material. It was observed thatbare CM 247 LC was severely corroded in just 4 hr, whileit was completely consumed in 70 hr when tested in 90% Na₂SO₄ +10% NaCl at 900°C. The results show that a chloridecontaining melt is more corrosive than pure sodiumsulfate. The weight loss is linearly related tot^1/2 (time) and temperature in the different environments studied. Thecorroded samples were characterized by EPMA, SEM, XRD,and metallographic techniques. The results show that hotcorrosion of CM 247 LC is an electrochemicalphenomenon.     

Dwell time effect on fatigue crack growth of RR1000 superalloy

Abstract

The requirement for improved understanding of the behaviour of turbine disc alloys at elevated temperatures has led to an increased interest in the contribution of time dependant mechanisms to high temperature fatigue crack growth. A study has been conducted on a new powder alloy to investigate the contribution of such mechanisms when the applied waveform is varied in terms of hold periods and the influence of limited thermal exposure is included. Variable waveform tests performed in air at 725°C have indicated that the addition of a hold time at maximum load in a fatigue cycle tends to increase the crack growth rate per cycle in the as heat treated material. Crack growth in thermally exposed material is retarded by up to a 10 s hold time and then accelerated as the hold time increases further. Rapid near crack tip stress relaxation induced by γ′ coarsening is proposed to have a beneficial effect on the severity of this type of damage which causes the crack growth rate reduction for short hold times.     

Investigations on role of HVOF sprayed Co and Ni based coatings to combat hot corrosion

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the hot corrosion resistance of high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) sprayed cobalt based (Stellite-6) and nickel based (Ni–20Cr) coatings deposited on the superalloy Superni-718 (Ni–19Cr–18˙5Fe–5˙13Ta–3˙05Mo–0˙9Ti–0˙5AI–0˙18Mn–0˙18Si–0˙15Cu–0˙04C) in the Na₂SO₄–60%V₂O₅ salt environment at 900°C under cyclic conditions. The X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive analysis and electron probe microanalyser techniques were used to study the corrosion products with respect to their morphology, phase composition and element concentration. The thermogravimetric technique was used to establish the kinetics of corrosion. The bare alloy underwent severe hot corrosion attack. The Ni–20Cr coating shows excellent hot corrosion resistance with negligible spallation, whereas Stellite-6 coating reveals less hot corrosion resistance and more spallation. The hot corrosion resistance of Ni–20Cr coating has been attributed to the formation of oxides of chromium, nickel and spinel of nickel chromium. The oxides of silicon, chromium, cobalt and spinels of cobalt–chromium and nickel–chromium have contributed for hot corrosion resistance of Stellite-6 coatings.     

Evolution of microstructure of nickel base superalloy at high temperatures

Abstract

The evolution of primary and secondary γ′ precipitates in the high γ′ volume fraction Rene 80 Ni based superalloy has been examined during aging at elevated temperatures for periods up to 1750 h. While the increase in average dimension of particles followed the cube rate Lifshitz, Slypzof and Wagner (LSW) law, r³_t – r³₀=Kt, there were significant discrepancies between the experimental and theoretical particle size distributions (PSDs) and inconsistency with the kinetic constants associated with the two populations of particles. These differences are attributed to the influence of elastic coherency strains which have not been considered in conventional capillarity driven coarsening models. During thermal exposure at 871°C, coalescence of primary cuboidal γ′ was predominant in early stages of aging, while the microstructure was relatively stable at longer aging times. The stability of the microstructure at longer aging times is attributed to the formation of the network of closely spaced dislocations at the γ/γ′ interface which would cause the loss of internal misfit stresses associated with the growth. Secondary spheroidal γ′ particles were initially coarsened and their volume fraction gradually decreased until they completely dissolved after 500 h at 871°C or 1 h at 982°C.     

Modelling correlation between hot working parameters and flow stress of IN625 alloy using neural network

Abstract

In this work, an optimum multilayer perceptron neural network is developed to model the correlation between hot working parameters (temperature, strain rate and strain) and flow stress of IN625 alloy. Three variations of standard back propagation algorithm (Broyden, Fletcher, Goldfarb and Shanno quasi-Newton, Levenberg–Marquardt and Bayesian) are applied to train the model. The results show that, in this case, the best performance, minimum error and shortest converging time are achieved by the Levenberg–Marquardt training algorithm. Comparing the predicted values and the experimental values reveals that a well trained network is capable of accurately calculating the flow stress of the alloy as a function of the processing parameters. Sensitivity analysis revealed that temperature has the largest effect on the flow stress of the alloy being in good agreement with the metallurgical fundamentals.