Dispersion strengthening of intermetallics

Dispersion strengthening has been applied recently to several intermetallic compounds, which otherwise suffer from insufficient creep strength at high temperatures. In this paper an overview is given of new theoretical aspects concerning the interaction between lattice dislocations and dispersoids. Particular complications arise when the dislocations are, due to the atomic order in the matrix, dissociated into superpartials. The development of oxide-dispersion strengthened NiAl, Ni3Al and FeAl is briefly described. It is shown that the creep properties can be reasonably well explained by the dislocation models.