Effect of Samarium Addition on Phase, Microstructure, and Hardness of Cast Nickel-Based Superalloys
摘要
A novel nickel-based superalloy (NSA) alloyed with samarium (Sm) content has been developed for high-temperature aerospace applications (above 750 °C) by vacuum arc melting process. The hardness of the newly developed alloy is compared with available compositions like CMSX-4 (second-generation NSA) and TMS-238 (sixth-generation NSA). The developed alloy (NVSm) showed comparable hardness values to similar standard alloys like CMSX-4 and TMS-238 in similar experimental conditions. The new alloy has no significant traces of undesirable hard eutectic-like β (BCC) phase that is composition-dependent and has a well-defined dendritic structure. However, Sm segregates form in the inter-dendritic regions by trace amounts. Adding Sm to TMS-238 forms TMS-238Sm and offers hardness, 454 HV10 ± 7, a value higher than that of NVSm attributed to its fine γ′ structure. However, TMS-238Sm has dendritic fragmentation, which is undesirable, inferring that NVSm could be a potential candidate as an aerospace alloy with Sm additions.