Internal Friction Study of Vacancy Hardening in B2 Fe Al Alloys

Abstract

nternal friction behaviour of B2 FeAl alloys has been examined to reveal the correlation of the microplasticity and thermal vacancies. The internal friction peak for Fe60Al40 appears at around 550 K, and the peak height increases with increasing quenching temperature. The curves of internal friction against the strain amplitude shift to larger strain amplitude as the quenching temperature increases. Analysis of the amplitude-dependent internal friction provides the plastic strain of the order of 10-9 as a function of effective stress on dislocation motion. It is found that the microflow stress at the plastic strain of 1×10-9 increases linearly with the square root of the net peak height. Remarkably, the microflow stress decreases with rising temperature but turns to increase above 500 K when measured after holding for 1 h at test temperatures. The anomalous increase in the microflow stress is caused by the creation of thermal vacancies at intermediate temperatures.