Applications to Alloy Development
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Application Examples
Designing Martensitic Stainless Steels for Carburization Treatments
During alloy design, phase diagrams can provide useful information to predict the stable phase fields as a function of composition and temperature. For example, Turpin et al. (Met. Trans. A, 2005) used Thermo-Calc and the Diffusion Module (DICTRA) to understand the influence of the chemical composition to find the optimal carbon profile in an alloy in order to develop a carburized martensitic stainless steel for applications in the aerospace industry. As a first step, the phase diagram of the steel was calculated using Thermo-Calc.
This recalculated figure shows an isopleth for a Fe-13Cr-5Co-3Ni-2Mo-0.07C martensitic stainless steel. The figure shows that, as the overall carbon content increases, first M23C6 carbides precipitate, then M7C3 carbides appear in the austenitic matrix; if the mass percent of carbon exceeds 3.8, M3C carbides (a structure similar to cementite) will preferentially precipitate at the grain boundaries, which could weaken the microstructure and should thus be avoided.
Optimizing Pitting Resistance in Duplex Stainless Steels
Duplex stainless steels consist of a nearly balanced microstructure of ferrite (BCC) and austenite (FCC) phases. They are designed to offer a combination of high strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance and require stringent control on composition and thermal processing. Thermo-Calc can be used to study the influence of composition on the corrosion resistance of each phase.
In this figure, the PRE (pitting resistance equivalent) is calculated for the ferrite and austenite in a 2507 alloy. When the alloy has 0.33wt% N, the PRE is equal in both phases, which helps avoid preferential corrosion. The homogenization temperature required to get a balanced 50/50 microstructure is also shown to be 990 °C – 1280 °C with 1172 °C providing the optimal equivalent PRE.
The Systems Design Approach to Materials
Thermo-Calc Software products can be used within an ICME framework to develop new alloys. To get started implementing an ICME framework, taking a systems level approach can be very useful to help an engineering team decide what variables are most important, and what properties to optimize. Learn more about using the systems approach to materials design in a blog post on the subject:
Read the blog post: The Systems Design Approach to Materials
Learn more about Applications to Alloy Development
Calphad-assisted design of high strength – ductility martensitic stainless-steels with reverted austenite
Computational Alloy Design for Process-Related Uncertainties in Powder Metallurgy
A new magnesium sheet alloy with high tensile properties and room-temperature formability
Elevated temperature microstructure evolution of a medium-entropy CrCoNi superalloy containing Al,Ti
An integrated computational materials engineering-anchored closed-loop method for design of aluminum alloys for additive manufacturing
Computational design of a single crystal nickel-based superalloy with improved specific creep endurance at high temperature
Advances in Pb-free Solder Microstructure Control and Interconnect Design
Design of an Eta-Phase Precipitation-Hardenable Nickel-Based Alloy with the Potential for Improved Creep Strength Above 1023 K (750 °C)
