AE 1354 - HIGH TEMPERATURE MATERIALS

UNIT 1

CREEP

CREEP

Definition

Creep is the tendency of a solid material to slowly move or deform permanently under the influence of stresses. It occurs as a result of long term exposure to levels of stress that are below the yield strength of the material. Creep is more severe in materials that are subjected to heat for long periods, and near the melting point. Creep always increases with temperature

Creep
The rate of this deformation is a function of the material properties, exposure time, exposure temperature and the applied structural load. Depending on the magnitude of the applied stress and its duration, the deformation may become so large that a component can no longer perform its function for example creep of a turbine blade will cause the blade to contact the casing, resulting in the failure of the blade.

Creep
Stress

Strain

Time

Mechanisms of Creep

High rates of diffusion permit reshaping of crystals to relieve stress Diffusion significant at both grain boundaries and in the bulk High energy and weak bonds allow dislocations to climb around structures that pin them at lower temperature

Mechanisms of Creep in metals

Mechanisms of Creep in metals: There are three basic mechanisms that can contribute to creep in metals, namely: (i) Dislocation slip and climb. (ii) Grain boundary sliding. (iii) Diffusional flow.

Figure Showing slip of an edge dislocation

Grain Boundary sliding:

Grain Boundary sliding: The onset of tertiary creep is a sign that structural damage has occurred in an alloy. Rounded and wedge shaped voids are seen mainly at the grain boundaries and when these coalesce creep rupture occurs. The mechanism of void formation involves grain boundary sliding which occurs under the action of shear stresses acting on the boundaries.

Evidence for grain boundary sliding

Mechanisms of Creep

Classical creep curve

Creep deformation is important not only in systems where high temperatures are endured such as nuclear power plants, jet engines and heat exchangers, but also in the design of many everyday objects

Generally, the minimum temperature required for creep deformation to occur is 30-40% of the melting point for metals and 40-50% of melting point for ceramics creep can be seen at relatively low temperatures for some materials. Plastics and low-meltingtemperature metals, including many solders, creep at room temperature as can be seen marked in lead and zinc

Practical example

An example of an application involving creep deformation is the design of tungsten lightbulb filaments. Sagging of the filament coil between its supports increases with time due to creep deformation caused by the weight of the filament itself. If too much deformation occurs, the adjacent turns of the coil touch one another, causing an electrical short and local overheating, which quickly leads to failure of the filament

Other some examples

Other examples Though mostly due to the reduced yield stress at higher temperatures, the Collapse of the World Trade Center was due in part to creep from increased temperature operation. The creep rate of hot pressure-loaded components in a nuclear reactor at power can be a significant design-constraint, since the creep rate is enhanced by the flux of energetic particles. Creep was blamed for the Big Dig tunnel ceiling collapse in Boston, Massachusetts that occurred in July 2006

In steam turbine power plants, steam pipes carry superheated vapour under high temperature (1050F/565.5C) and high pressure often at 3500 psi (24.131 MPa) or greater. In a jet engine temperatures may reach to 1000C, which may initiate creep deformation in a weak zone. For these reasons, it is crucial for public and operational safety to understand creep deformation behavior of engineering materials.

Stages of creep

In the initial stage, known as primary creep, the strain rate is relatively high, but slows with increasing strain. The strain rate eventually reaches a minimum and becomes near-constant. This is known as secondary or steady-state creep. This stage is the most understood. The characterized "creep strain rate", typically refers to the rate in this secondary stage. The stress dependence of this rate depends on the creep mechanism.

Mechanisms of creep
The mechanism of creep depends on temperature and stress. The various methods are:
Thermally activated glide - e.g., via cross-slip Climb assisted glide - here the climb is an enabling mechanism, allowing dislocations to get around obstacles Climb - here the strain is actually accomplished by climb Grain boundary diffusion

General creep equation

where is the creep strain, C is a constant dependent on the material and the particular creep mechanism, m and b are exponents dependent on the creep mechanism, Q is the activation energy of the creep mechanism, is the applied stress, d is the grain size of the material, k is Boltzmann's constant, and T is the absolute temperature

Dislocation creep
At high stresses (relative to the shear modulus), creep is

controlled by the movement of dislocations. When a

stress is applied to a material, plastic deformation occurs due to the movement of dislocations in the slip plane. Materials contain a variety of defects, for example solute atoms, that act as obstacles to dislocation motion.

Creep arises from this because of the phenomenon of dislocation climb. At high temperatures vacancies in the

crystal can diffuse to the location of a dislocation and

cause the dislocation to move to an adjacent slip plane. By climbing to adjacent slip planes dislocations can get around obstacles to their motion, allowing further deformation to occur. Because it takes time for vacancies to diffuse to the location of a dislocation this results in time dependent strain, or creep.

Effect of stress on creep curves at constant temperature

Unit III

Fracture

Unit IV
Oxidation and corrosion

What is Oxidation ?

Oxidation means the loss of electrons. The oxidation of a metal occurs when the metal loses one or more electrons, so that the atoms of the metal go from the neutral state and become a positively charge ion. This commonly results in the formation of a metal oxide (in the case of iron, that is known as rust).

Pilling-Bedworth ratio

In their 1923 paper "The oxidation of metals in high temperature" presented to the Institute of Metals, N. B. Pilling and R. E. Bedworth first correlated the porosity of a metal oxide with the specific density1. The Pilling-Bedworth ratio, (P-B ratio) R, of a metal oxide is defined as the ratio of the volume of the metal oxide, which is produced by the reaction of metal and oxygen, to the consumed metal volume:

M and D are the molecular weight and density of the metal oxide whose composition is (Metal)a(oxygen)b; m, and d are the atomic weight and density of the metal.

continued

Pilling and Bedworth realized that, when R is less than 1, a metal oxide tends to be porous and nonprotective because it cannot cover the whole metal surface. Later researchers found that, for excessively large R, large compressive stresses are likely to exist in metal oxide, leading to buckling and spalling. In addition to R, factors such as the relative coefficients of thermal expansion and the adherence between metal oxide and metal should also be favorable in order to produce a protective oxide.

Kinetic laws of corrosion

Three basic kinetic laws have been used to characterize the oxidation rates of pure metals. It is important to bear in mind that these laws are based on relatively simple oxidation models. Practical oxidation problems usually involve alloys and considerably more complicated oxidation mechanisms and scale properties than considered in these simple analyses

The parabolic rate law assumes that the diffusion of metal cations or oxygen anions is the rate controlling step and is derived from Fick's first law of diffusion. The concentrations of diffusing species at the oxidemetal and oxide-gas interfaces are assumed to be constant. The diffusivity of the oxide layer is also assumed to be invariant. This assumption implies that the oxide layer has to be uniform, continuous and of the single phase type. Strictly speaking, even for pure metals, this assumption is rarely valid. The rate constant, kp, changes with temperature according to an Arrhenius type relationship:

where: x is the oxide film thickness (or the mass gain due to oxidation, which is proportional to the oxide film thickness) t is time kp is the rate constant, directly proportional to the diffusivity of the ionic species that is rate controlling x0 is a constant

The logarithmic rate law is an empirical relationship with no fundamental underlying mechanism. This law is mainly applicable to thin oxide layers formed at relatively low temperatures, and therefore rarely applicable to high temperature engineering problems:

where: ke is the rate constant c and b are constants

Third law

The linear rate law is also an empirical relationship that is applicable to the formation and build-up of a non-protective oxide layer.

where: kL is the rate constant

Introduction to High Temperature Corrosion

High temperature corrosion is a form of corrosion that does not require the presence of a liquid electrolyte. Sometimes, this type of damage is called "dry corrosion" or "scaling". The term oxidation is ambivalent since it can either refer to the formation of oxides or to the mechanism of oxidation of a metal, i.e. its change to a higher valence than the metallic state. Strictly speaking, high temperature oxidation is only one type of high temperature corrosion. In fact, oxidation is the most important high temperature corrosion reaction.

continued

In most corrosive high temperature environments, oxidation often participates in the high temperature corrosion reactions, regardless of the predominant mode of corrosion. Alloys often rely upon the oxidation reaction to develop a protective scale to resist corrosion attack such as sulfidation, carburization and other forms of high temperature attack. In general, the names of the corrosion mechanisms are determined by the most abundant dominant corrosion products

High temperature corrosion is a widespread problem in various industries such as

power generation (nuclear and fossil fuel) aerospace and gas turbine heat treating mineral and metallurgical processing chemical processing refining and petrochemical automotive pulp and paper waste incineration

Combat of hot corrosion

Unit V
Super alloys and other Material

Introduction

superalloy

A superalloy is a metallic alloy which can be used at high temperatures, often in excess of 0.7 of the absolute melting temperature. Creep and oxidation resistance are the prime design criteria. Superalloys can be based on iron, cobalt or nickel, the latter being best suited for aeroengine applications

Alloy designations for some common superalloys

Solid solution strengthening

Solid solution strengthening is a type of alloying that can be used to improve the strength of a pure metal. The technique works by adding atoms of one element (the alloying element) to the crystalline lattice another element (the base metal). The alloying element diffuses into the matrix, forming a solid solution. In most binary systems, when alloyed above a certain concentration, a second phase will form. When this increases the strength of the material, the process is known as precipitation strengthening

Precipitation hardening

Precipitation hardening, also called age hardening, is a heat treatment technique used to strengthen malleable materials, including most structural alloys of aluminum, magnesium, nickel and titanium, and some stainless steels. It relies on changes in solid solubility with temperature to produce fine particles of an impurity phase, which impede the movement of dislocations, or defects in a crystal's lattice. Since dislocations are often the dominant carriers of plasticity, this serves to harden the material. The impurities play the same role as the particle substances in particle-reinforced composite materials

Grain boundary strengthening

Grain boundary strengthening (or Hall-Petch strengthening) is a method of strengthening materials by changing their average crystallite (grain) size. It is based on the observation that grain boundaries impede dislocation movement and that the number of dislocations within a grain have an effect on how easily dislocations can traverse grain boundaries and travel from grain to grain. So, by changing grain size one can influence dislocation movement and yield strength.

TCP phase

Embrittlement

Embrittlement is a loss of ductility of a material, making it brittle. Various materials have different mechanisms of embrittlement.

Hydrogen embrittlement is the effect of hydrogen absorption on some metals and alloys.
Sulfide stress cracking is the embrittlement caused by absorption of hydrogen sulfide. Liquid metal embrittlement (LME) is the embrittlement caused by liquid metals. (MIE) is the embrittlement caused by diffusion of atoms of metal, either solid or liquid, into the material. Neutron radiation causes embrittlement of some materials, neutron-induced swelling, and buildup of Wigner energy. This is a process especially important for neutron moderators and nuclear reactor vessels

Intermetallics

Intermetallics are compounds that form when certain combinations of two or more metals are mixed together in certain proportions and react to produce a solid phase that is distinctively different from the constituent elements