Formation mechanism of large grains inside annealed microstructure of GH4169 superalloy by cellular automation method

In authors’ previous work [Mater. Charact. 141 (2018) 212-222]. it was found that the heterogeneous deformed microstructures can be replaced by the relatively homogeneous recrystallized grains through an annealing treatment. However, there are still some relatively large recrystallized grains. To find the reasons for the formation of large grains, some new annealing treatment tests were done, and the cellular automation (CA) simulations were carried out in the present work. The experimental results showed that the microstructural evolution during annealing treatment is significantly affected by the content of S phase. So. the effects of δ phase on the nucleation and growth of grains are carefully considered in the CA model to accurately simulate the microstructural evolution behavior. By the CA simulation, it is found that the dislocation density rapidly decreases due to the nucleation of static recrystallization (SRX) and the growth of dynamc recrystallization (DRX) nuclei at the early stage of annealing. The high initial dislocation density provide the high velocity for the growth of DRX nuclei, which is responsible for the formation of coarse grains, However, the growth rate of SRX nuclei is relatively small due to the low dislocation density and pinning effects of δ phase.

Methods and mechanisms for uniformly refining deformed mixed and coarse grains inside a solution-treated Ni-based superalloy by two-stage heat treatment

The uniform refinement mechanisms and methods of deformed mixed and coarse grains inside a solution-treatment Ni-based superalloy during two-stage annealing treatment have been investigated.The two-stage heat treatment experiments include an aging annealing treatment(AT)and a subsequent recrystallization annealing treatment(RT).The object of AT is to precipitate someδphases and consume part of storage energy to inhibit the grain growth during RT,while the RT is to refine mixed and coarse grains by recrystallization.It can be found that the recrystallization grains will quickly grow up to a large size when the AT time is too low or the RT temperature is too high,while the deformed coarse grains cannot be eliminated when the AT time is too long or the RT temperature is too low.In addition,the mixed microstructure composed of some abnormal coarse recrystallization grains(ACRGs)and a large number of fine grains can be observed in the annealed specimen when the AT time is 3 h and RT temperature is 980℃.The phenomenon attributes to the uneven distribution ofδphase resulted from the heterogeneous deformation energy when the AT time is too short.In the regions with a large number ofδphases,the recrystallization nucleation rate is promoted and the growth of grains is limited,which results in fine grains.However,in the regions with fewδphases,the recrystallization grains around grain boundaries can easily grow up,and the new recrystallization nucleus is difficult to form inside grain,which leads to ACRGs.Thus,in order to obtain uniform and fine annealed microstructure,it is a prerequisite to precipitate even-distributedδphase by choosing a suitable AT time,such as 12 h.Moreover,a relative high RT temperature is also needed to promote the recrystallization nucleation aroundδphase.The optimal annealing parameters range for uniformly refining mixed crystal can be summarized as:900℃×12 h+990℃×(40-60 min)and 900℃×12 h+1000℃×(10-15 min).