On the formation of intermetallics in Fe–Al system – An in situ XRD study

Aluminum-rich coatings made by chemical vapor deposition and pack cementation on ferritic (e.g. Fe-9Cr-1Mo) and austenitic (Type 304L) substrates are being evaluated at 650-800 C. For oxidation testing, a humid air environment was used to quantify coating performance, as uncoated substrates experience rapid oxidation at these temperatures. A main goal of this work is to demonstrate the potential benefits and problems with alumina-forming coatings. The higher exposure temperatures were selected to accelerate the degradation of the coating by interdiffusion with the substrate. A general conclusion of this testing was that coatings with less Al and a ferritic Fe(Al) structure could be more durable than higher Al content aluminide coatings which have a large thermal expansion mismatch with these substrates. A lifetime model has been developed using diffusion and oxidation observations to predict coating performance as a function of temperature and initial coating composition. To test and improve the model, additional experiments are now being conducted to determine the effect of substrate composition (e.g. Cr content using Fe-12Cr and Fe-9Cr-2W substrates) and exposure temperature on the critical Al content for coating failure. Because of the unexpectedly low level of Al measured at coating failure ({approx}3.5 at.% at 700 C), exposures ofmore » specimens with thick ({approx}200 {micro}m) high Al content coatings were stopped after 10kh at 800 C and 20kh at 700 C because extremely long times to failure were predicted. Post-exposure Al concentration profiles for these specimens were measured using electron microprobe.« less

Performance of Al-rich Oxidation Resistant Coatings for Fe-Base Alloys

Interdiffusion coefficients in the Fe–Al system have been measured up to Al concentrations of 50 at.-%. An aluminizing pack was used as the source of Al, and consisted of a powder mixture of A1203, Fe–50Al, and an activator. The temperature and composition dependence of the diffusion coefficients were evaluated and compared with predictions of existing models for alloys of high solute content.

Interdiffusion in Fe–Al system: aluminizing

One of the potential degradation modes of oxidation-resistant iron aluminide coatings is the loss of Al from the coatings into Fe-base substrate alloys that typically contain no Al. To address this issue, interdiffusion between aluminide coatings and steel substrates was studied for times up to 10,000 h in the temperature range of 500-800 °C. Coatings were synthesized in a laboratory chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactor on representative commercial ferritic alloy Fe-9Cr-lMo and type 304L austenitic stainless steel. The microstructural and compositional changes after diffusion anneals were examined in detail. An initial attempt to model the interdiffusion behavior was carried out by applying an existing software program COSIM (coating oxidation and substrate interdiffusion model). Complementary work was conducted using a simple mathematic model developed by Heckel et al. Reasonable agreement was observed between the simulated and experimental composition profiles for the aluminide coatings on ferritic alloys. Model results were then applied to predict coating lifetime.

C. Ouchi

Papers

Aluminide coating of iron