Effect of Cooling Rate on the Microstructure and Mechanical Property of Nickel-Based Superalloy MAR-M247.

Heat treatment is an important process for optimizing the microstructures of superalloys, and the cooling rate after solid solution treatment is one of the most critical parameters. In this work, we treated solid solution MAR-M247 alloys with water quenching, air cooling, and furnace cooling. Microstructure characterization, hardness, and room temperature tensile tests were conducted to investigate the effect of cooling rate on the microstructure and mechanical properties of MAR-M247 alloys. The results showed that the cooling rate after solid solution treatment mainly affected the precipitation behavior of the secondary γ' phase, but it had few effects on other microstructure characterizations, including grain size, γ/γ' eutectic, and MC carbide. The water-quenched sample had the highest cooling rate (400 °C/s) and hardness (400 HV) but suffered from premature fracture because of quenching cracks. A further decrease in cooling rate from 1.5 °C/s to 0.1 °C/s deteriorated hardness (384 HV to 364 HV) and yield strength (960 MPa to 771 MPa) but increased elongation (8.5% to 13.5%). Moreover, the deformation mechanism was transformed from dislocation shearing to Orowan bypassing. The decreased yield strength was mainly due to the weakened precipitation strengthening resulting from γ'-phase coarsening. The improved elongation was attributed to not only the higher work-hardening index caused by interface dislocation networks but also the more uniform deformation, which delayed necking.

High Temperature Behaviors of a Casting Nickel-Based Superalloy Used for 815 °C.

The hot deformation behaviors of the SJTU-1 alloy, the high-throughput scanned casting Nickel-based superalloy, was investigated by compression test in the temperature range of 900 to 1200 °C and strain rate range of 0.1-0.001 s-1. The hot processing map has been constructed with the instability zone. At the beginning of hot deformation, the flow stress moves rapidly to the peak value with the increased strain rates. Meanwhile, the peak stress is decreased with the increased temperature at the same strain rates. However, the peak stress shows the same tendency with the strain rates at the same temperature. The optimum hot deformation condition was determined in the temperature range of 1000-1075 °C, and the strain rate range of 0.005-0.1 s-1. The microstructure investigation indicates the strain rate significantly affects the characteristics of the microstructure. The deformation constitutive equation has also been discussed as well.