NANOSTRUCTURE CHARACTERIZATION OF IN738LC SUPERALLOY FATIGUED AT HIGH TEMPERATURE

The nanostructure of Inconel 738LC Ni-superalloy strengthened by trimodal Y precipitates distribution was investigated after Low Cycle Fatigue (LFC) loading at temperature 700°C. Different microscopic techniques as Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) equipped with STEM detectro, transmission Kikuchi diffraction in the SEM, transmission electron microscope (TEM) in the bright field mode and high resolution transmission electron mciroscopes (HRTEM) in STEM mode were used for the characterization and quantification of superalloy nanostructure. The characteristic morphology of y precipitates was examined by ex-situ and in-situ Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) at high temperatures. All adopted microscopic techniques indicate that the morphology of y precipitates distributed in the y matrix as recived state corresponds to two types, i.e. large cuboid-like precipitates with the size around 670 nm, and the spherical precipitates with the diameter 52nm. After eh LCF tests at temperature 700°C, the ex-situ SANS measurement yielded addititonal scattering intensities coming from another small y precipitetes with estimated size up to 10nm