Abstract
Hardness of Fe-Al alloys shows a non-trivial dependence on chemical composition and thermal treatment of samples and cannot be fully explained by consideration of intermetallic phases formed according to the equilibrium phase diagram of Fe-Al system. Hardening in Fe-Al alloys caused by quenched-in non-equilibrium vacancies was studied in this work. Non-equilibrium vacancies introduced into the alloys by quenching from 1000 °C were detected by means of positron annihilation spectroscopy. The concentration of quenched-in vacancies was found to strongly increase with increasing Al content from ≈ 10−5 at.−1 in the alloy with cAl = 18 at. % up to ≈ 10−1 at.−1 in the alloy with cAl = 45 at. %. Comparison of the vacancy concentration and the Vickers microhardness revealed that hardening is proportional to square root of concentration of quenched-in vacancies.
Export citation and abstract BibTeX RIS
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.