Influence of cyclic frequency on oxidation behavior of K38 superalloy with yttrium additions at 1 273 K

Cyclic oxidation test is a fundamental method to assess lifetime of materials in high temperature environment. Cycle length or cyclic frequency is one important variable in cyclic oxidation testing. In present work, cyclic oxidation tests were performed on cast K38 alloys with 0 wt.%, 0.1 wt.%, and 0.5 wt.% yttrium additions at 1 273 K respectively. Two cyclic frequencies were used to investigate the influence of cycle length (1 h vs. 20 h) on the high temperature oxidation behavior of superalloy. The results showed that the degradation of cast K38 alloy critically was dependent on the cyclic frequency. The yttrium addition was beneficial to reducing scale-growth rate, improving the scale adhesion and stress releasing, thereby increased the spallation resistance. It could be drawn that the effect of cyclic frequency was highly dependent on the scale adherence to the substrate.