THE INFLUENCE OF CHROMIUM ADDITIONS ON ORDER AND DUCTILITY IN FE3AL INTERMETALLIC

It has previously been shown that the addition of Cr to the Fe3Al alloy can lead to improvements in ductility. Initial interpretations of this effect were based on changes in the fault energies and dislocation configurations, but recently the influence of environmental attack has been invoked. In the present study the role of Cr and other elemental additions on the state of order, dislocation dissociations and configurations, and on ductility l;as been examined under conditions where environmental attack should not be important. The addition of Cr is shown to have only a minor affect on ordering kinetics, fault energies and dislocation configurations. However, for the alloys generally considered, containing 28% Al, it is shown that the ordered state and microstructure depends sensitively on the precise composition and heat treatments given. In particular, small amounts of solute elements such as B can lead to the appearance of two-phase ordered-disordered microstructures over a wide temperature range, to the appearance of imperfect long range and short range order, and to major changes in the kinetics of ordering and disordering. The mechanical properties achieved are shown to depend critically on the extent and distribution of disorder (the long range order parameter, the extent of short range order, the presence and distribution of thick disordered domain walls) and this factor may explain much of the variability in properties reported between similar alloys. By way of example, the presence of short range order will confine dislocations to well-defined shear planes, concentrating shear and inducing early failure; disordered domain walls will dissociate superdislocations thereby spreading shear homogeneously; the ordered domains/disordered walls morphology will lead to particle-dispersion hardening.