Characterizing Size, Morphology, and Mechanical Properties of Superalloy Carbides
EMSL Project ID
16098
Abstract
In order to reduce materials development time in superalloy applications, it is necessary to develop physically-based models to predict the alloy's properties, specifically mechanical properties. There are several microstructural phases present in superalloys, making it a complex problem to model and predict mechanical properties. Additionally, it is difficult to extract the independent properties of each microstructural constituent. There are several different types of carbides in superalloys that can be beneficial or deleterious to the mechanical properties of the alloy depending on the nature of the carbide, so it is important to correlate carbide size, composition, and morphology to mechanical properties such as hardness and modulus. Planar metallographic specimens of a nickel-base superalloy were polished and etched. The resulting surfaces show carbide precipitates in relief in the planar section, and an Auger could be used to identify the composition of these carbides. We are also electrolytically extracting carbides from the microstructure and these will also be available for Auger analysis. We would like to identify the composition of the carbides and associate the results to the carbide morphology and location within the microstructure; we are performing mechanical testing in conjunction to correlate to these carbide properties. These results will aid in future modeling efforts involving the carbides’ influence on properties such as crack initiation and creep behavior. We will gratefully acknowledge EMSL in any resulting publications.
Project Details
Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2005-07-25
End Date
2006-04-10
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator