Thermal stability of oxide particles in 12Cr ODS steel

12Cr ferritic ODS steel was fabricated by mechanical alloying (MA), hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and hot rolling processes. Thermal stability of the oxide particles in the ODS steel sample was evaluated by isothermal annealing at 1250 °C for 500 h. High density YTaO4 particles with a mean size of about 9 nm were observed in the as hipped sample. A significant coarsening of the YTaO4 particles was observed after hot rolling at 1200 °C. Additional coarsening, as well as phase transformation from monoclinic YTaO4 to cubic Y3TaO7 was detected after isothermal annealing at 1250 °C. These results imply that heat treatment temperatures of the ODS steel during fabrication processes should be controlled as low as possible to avoid the undesirable coarsening of oxide precipitates.