Dynamic Softening Mechanisms of GH4720Li Alloy During Hot Deformation

GH4720Li alloy is a precipitation strengthened Ni-based superalloy and widely applied in high performance applications such as disks and blades of either aircraft engines or land-based gas turbines attributing to its excellent properties including resistance to creep and fatigue, together with corrosion, fracture and microstructural stability for the intended applications. Hot working is an effective way for shaping metals and alloys as well as changing the microstructure and mechanical properties. Lots of typical metallurgical behaviors such as dynamic recovery (DRV), discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) and continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) occur, which are related to the hot working parameters, including deformation temperature, strain rate and strain. In order to investigate the effect of deformation parameters on dynamic softening behavior and evolution of twinning for GH4720Li alloy, the hot deformation behavior of as-forged GH4720Li alloy was studied by isothermal compression tests. OM, SEM, EBSD and TEM techniques were employed to investigate systematically the dynamic softening mechanisms, formation of DRX grains and evolution of substructure in grains under different deformation parameters. The results showed that DDRX can take place at all studied deformation conditions. The boundary bulging and nucleation of DDRX grains were restrained as a result of decrease of dislocation substructures and subgrain boundaries density consumed by continuous original boundary migration (COBM) in deformed grains at low strain rates and high temperatures, and then the occurrence of DDRX was suppressed. DDRX was promoted as the strain rate was increased and uniform microstructures composed of fine equiaxed grains can be readily obtained as well. The microstructural changes showed that the pinning effect of fine undissolved gamma' precipitates was able to hinder the dislocation movement and promote the formation of high density of dislocation substructures and subgrain boundaries in deformed grains. The increase in sub-boundary misorientation brought about by continuous accumulation of the dislocations was introduced by the deformation, and fine DRX grains formed by particle-induced continuous dynamic recrystallization (PI-CDRX). According to the evolution of twinning under various deformation conditions, the effect of deformation temperature and strain rate on the evolution of twinning was characterized by the occurrence of DRX behavior.