Microstructural characterization of a new mechanically alloyed Ni-base ODS superalloy powder

The microstructure of a new Ni-base oxide dispersion strengthened superalloy powder was studied for high temperature gas turbine applications after the mechanical alloying process. In this study, an atomized powder with a composition similar to the CMSX-10 superalloy was mechanically alloyed with yttria and Hf powders. The mechanically alloyed powder included only the supersaturated solid solution γ phase without γ′ and yttria provided by severe plastic deformation, while after the 3-step aging, the γ′ phase was precipitated due to the partitioning of Al and Ta to the γ′ and Co, Cr, Re, W, and Mo to the γ phase. Mechanical alloying modified the morphology of γ′ to the new coherent γ–γ′ nanoscale lamellar structure to minimize the elastic strain energy of the precipitation, which yielded a low lattice misfit of 0.16% at high temperature. The γ′ lamellae aligned preferentially along the elastically soft [100] direction. Also, the precipitated oxide particles were refined in the γ phase by adding Hf from large incoherent YAlO3 to fine semi-coherent Y2Hf2O7 oxide particles with the average size of 7 nm and low interparticle spacing of 76 nm.