Simulation of stray grain formation in Ni-base single crystal turbine blades fabricated by HRS and LMC techniques

The simulation models of the thermal and macrostructural evolutions during directional solidification of Ni-base single crystal(SX) turbine blades under high rate solidification(HRS) and liquid metal cooling(LMC) have been constructed using Pro CAST software, coupled with a 3D Cellular Automaton Finite Element(CAFE) model. The models were used to investigate the tendencies of stray grain(SG) formation in the platform region of turbine blades fabricated by HRS and LMC techniques. The results reveal that the LMC technique can prohibit SG formation by smoothing the concaved isotherm and in turn alleviating the undercooling in the platform ends to let the dendrites fill up the undercooled zone before SG nucleation. The simulation results agreed well with the experimental results, indicating that these models could be used to analyze the macrostructural evolution or to optimize process parameters to suppress SG formation. Using these models, the critical withdrawal rate for casting SX turbine blades without SG formation were determined to be around 75 μm·s^(-1) and 100 μm·s^(-1) for HRS and LMC respectively, suggesting that LMC can be used as an efficient technique in fabricating SX turbine blades without any SG defect formation.

Effects of grain refinement on cast structure and tensile properties of superalloy K4169 at high pouring temperature

In order to improve the filling ability of large complex thin wall castings, the pouring temperature should be increased, but this will result in the grain coarsening. To overcome this problem, two kinds of grain refiners of Co-Fe-Nb and Cr-Fe-Nb ternary alloys, which contain high stability compound particles, were prepared. The effects of the refiners on the as-cast structures and tensile properties of the K4169 superalloy with different casting conditions were studied by analyzing specimens 110 mm long and 20 mm in diameter.Results showed that the mixture addition of the two refiners in the melt of K4169 can reduce the columnar grain region and decrease the equiaxed grain size greatly. After refinement, the amount of Laves phase decreases and its morphology changes from island to blocky structure. The carbides in the fine grain samples are fine and dispersive. Meanwhile, the porosity in specimens is decreased due to grain refinement. As a result, the yield strength, ultimate strength and the elongation of the specimens are increased. The grain refinement mechanisms are also discussed.