Development of Fe₃Al Based Intermetallic Alloys by Electroslag Remelting

抄録

A process route comprising air induction melting (AIM) and electroslag remelting (ESR) using steel scrap and commercial aluminium is described for production of an Fe₃Al based ordered intermetallic alloy. The ESR cast alloy exhibited room temperature mechanical properties superior to those of conventionally processed material using purer raw material as feed stock. Hot forging at 1273 K refines the microstructure but only a marginal improvement in mechanical properties is obtained indicating that the properties of as-cast ESR product are comparable to that of the wrought product, as is the case in steels, and that hot working is required only to achieve the desired component dimensions. To screen the sample from environmental moisture during testing, tensile testing was also carried out after coating the samples with oil. There is no significant improvement in mechanical properties after oil coating contrary to the results reported in literature. This may be attributed to significant levels of carbon present in the alloy used in this work.