Low ductility at intermediate temperature of Ni–base superalloy M963

Tensile behavior of a cast Ni–base superalloy M963 under solution treatment and age treatment was studied in the temperature range from 20 to 1100 °C. Extensive TEM investigations were performed after tensile test to fracture. Furthermore, the fracture surfaces were studied in the SEM. The yield and tensile strengths under the two conditions initially increase with temperature and reach a peak at around 800 °C. Beyond this temperature, a sharp decrease of both yield and tensile strengths was observed. A ductility minimum was observed at 800 °C under solution treatment and disappeared under age treatment. With the increment of temperature, the following sequence of deformed substructure features was observed: dislocation pairs → connected slip bands within matrix channel under solution treatment and homogeneous interface dislocations under age treatment → homogeneous dislocation network within matrix channel. The fracture surface observation indicated that localized slip which leading to glide plane decohesion caused the poor ductility of M963 alloy.