TY - JOUR
T1 - An investigation of precipitation strengthened Inconel 718 superalloy after triode plasma nitriding
AU - Tao, Xiao
AU - Kavanagh, John
AU - Li, Xiaoying
AU - Dong, Hanshan
AU - Matthews, Allan
AU - Leyland, Adrian
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge the support provided by Dr. Peng Zeng and Dr. Le Ma from the Sorby Centre for Electron Microscopy at the University of Sheffield and by Mr. Paul Stanley from the Centre for Electron Microscopy at the University of Birmingham.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2022/7/25
Y1 - 2022/7/25
N2 - In this study, we investigated the microstructural evolution, surface hardening and general corrosion properties of a precipitation-strengthened Inconel 718 Ni-superalloy after triode-plasma nitriding (TPN) at low treatment temperatures of 400–450 °C (i.e. thermodynamic paraequilibrium conditions) and a high treatment temperature of 700 °C. At low treatment temperatures, apart from the formation of nitrogen-expanded austenite (γN) from the high-Cr γ matrix, the pre-existing γ′ and γ″ intermetallic nano-precipitates appear to exhibit different nitriding responses. The spheroidal N-modified γ′ (or γ′N) precipitates were ‘slightly-expanded’, leading to slightly shifted XRD peaks, i.e. 2-theta angles of ~0.2° from γsubstrate(111) and ~0.5° from γsubstrate(200). In contrast, N-modified γ″ (or γ″N) could experience substantial lattice expansion close to that of the γN matrix. With increasing treatment temperature, nitride formation started as additional nano-sized precipitates (e.g. ~3–6 nm diameter as observed at 450 °C) and grew into laths (e.g. ~5–10 nm thick and ~15–30 nm wide as observed at 700 °C). Without changing core microstructure/properties, surface nitrogen modification and hardening were obtained on alloy 718 after TPN (e.g. from ~486 HV0.025 to ~1212 HV0.025 after TPN at 400 °C). No degradation of corrosion performance was observed for the nitrogen-supersaturated surface after TPN at 400 °C. However, the 450 °C TPN-treated surface showed a slightly increased current density in the anodic region, which can be associated with early-stage nitride formation. The significantly deteriorated corrosion performance after TPN treatment at 700 °C is due to pronounced nitride formation and segregation of substitutional alloying elements.
AB - In this study, we investigated the microstructural evolution, surface hardening and general corrosion properties of a precipitation-strengthened Inconel 718 Ni-superalloy after triode-plasma nitriding (TPN) at low treatment temperatures of 400–450 °C (i.e. thermodynamic paraequilibrium conditions) and a high treatment temperature of 700 °C. At low treatment temperatures, apart from the formation of nitrogen-expanded austenite (γN) from the high-Cr γ matrix, the pre-existing γ′ and γ″ intermetallic nano-precipitates appear to exhibit different nitriding responses. The spheroidal N-modified γ′ (or γ′N) precipitates were ‘slightly-expanded’, leading to slightly shifted XRD peaks, i.e. 2-theta angles of ~0.2° from γsubstrate(111) and ~0.5° from γsubstrate(200). In contrast, N-modified γ″ (or γ″N) could experience substantial lattice expansion close to that of the γN matrix. With increasing treatment temperature, nitride formation started as additional nano-sized precipitates (e.g. ~3–6 nm diameter as observed at 450 °C) and grew into laths (e.g. ~5–10 nm thick and ~15–30 nm wide as observed at 700 °C). Without changing core microstructure/properties, surface nitrogen modification and hardening were obtained on alloy 718 after TPN (e.g. from ~486 HV0.025 to ~1212 HV0.025 after TPN at 400 °C). No degradation of corrosion performance was observed for the nitrogen-supersaturated surface after TPN at 400 °C. However, the 450 °C TPN-treated surface showed a slightly increased current density in the anodic region, which can be associated with early-stage nitride formation. The significantly deteriorated corrosion performance after TPN treatment at 700 °C is due to pronounced nitride formation and segregation of substitutional alloying elements.
KW - Expanded austenite
KW - Ni-based superalloys
KW - Nitriding
KW - Precipitation
KW - Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127488651&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.surfcoat.2022.128401
DO - 10.1016/j.surfcoat.2022.128401
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127488651
SN - 0257-8972
VL - 442
JO - Surface and Coatings Technology
JF - Surface and Coatings Technology
M1 - 128401
ER -