《Characterization of γ precipitates in a nickel base superalloy quenching from aging temperature at different rates》.pdfVIP

RARE METALS Vol. 29, No. 2, Apr 2010, p. 204 DOI: 10.1007/s12598-010-0035-1 Characterization of γ′ precipitates in a nickel base superalloy quenching from aging temperature at different rates LI Hongyu, SONG Xiping, WANG Yanli, and CHEN Guoliang State Key Lab for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China Received 4 April 2009; received in revised form 4 June 2009; accepted 20 June 2009 © The Nonferrous Metals Society of China and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 Abstract The characteristics of γ′ precipitates in a superalloy quenched from 1050°C at different rates were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). When quenched from 1050°C, the size of primary aging γ′ precipitates has a small increase in the specimens that experienced iced-brine-quenching, oil-quenching, and air-cooling-quenching conditions and a drastic increase in the specimen that ex- perienced a furnace-cooling-quenching condition. The cooling γ′ precipitates have unimodal distributions after quenching at the air-cooling rate and bimodal distributions after quenching at the furnace-cooling rate, but there are not these distributions in the specimens that experi- enced iced-brine-quenching and oil-quenching conditions. When aging at 760°C, the size of primary aging γ′ precipitates appears unaffected in the specimens that experienced iced-brine-quenching, oil-quenching, and air-cooling-quenching conditions. However, it has a drastic in- crease in the specimen that experienced a furnace-cooling-quenching condition, and it is interesting that the bigger cooling γ′ precipitates have a coalescence and octodendritic shape. The microhardness study indicates that the hardness has no variation in the specimens that ex- perienced iced-brine-quenching, oil-quenching, and air-cooling-quenching conditions and has a drastic decrease in the specimens that ex- perienced a furnace-cooling-quenching cond