Microstructural and thermal processing effects on adding 1 and 3 w/o Ti to a powder metallurgy processed quaternary Ni–Cr–Fe–Al alloy

The effect of the addition of 1 and 3 w/o Ti to a quaternary (Ni–Cr–Fe–Al) alloy on the phase transformations that might occur in the material on sintering were simulated using a thermodynamic modelling tool. These predictions were subsequently compared with experimental results obtained by X-ray diffraction and metallography. As well, the onset of melting and the transformation temperature of the Ti modified alloys were corroborated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). From SEM and point count analyses, the microstructure, including the % porosity and volume fraction of gamma prime precipitates, remained relatively unchanged from the quaternary without Ti. This may have been due to the presence of sub-micron precipitates not detected in the Ti-containing samples. However, an increase in lattice parameters on adding both 1 and 3 w/o Ti to the quaternary was determined from X-ray diffraction measurements. Finally, the software modelling provided a reasonable prediction for both microstructure and thermal processing thereby offering a means to simulate both design and characterisation of the experimental material, both during sintering and on cooling.