Cu-Containing Fe-Ni Corrosion-Resistant Alloys Designed by a Cluster-Based Stable Solid Solution Model

Copper is a good corrosion resisting element, but due to its immiscibility with Fe, it is only used as a minor-alloying element in stainless steels. In this work, we introduced a double-cluster structure model [CuNi12][NiFe12] (m) for stable solid solutions in Cu-containing Fe-Ni corrosion-resistant invar alloys. Our model takes into account all of the enthalpies between the element pairs by assuming Fe-Ni and Ni-Cu nearest neighbors and by avoiding Fe-Cu ones, so that the ideally stabilized structures are described by mixing two cuboctahedral clusters in the fcc lattice, NiFe12 and CuNi12. Two alloy series were designed by varying the relative proportions of the two clusters and the Cu contents. It was proved that the alloys with Cu contents below those prescribed by this model could easily be solutionized and water-quenched to a monolithic fcc solid solution, and resultant alloys possessed good corrosion-resisting properties in 3.5 wt pct NaCl solution.