Investigation into the influence of post-weld heat treatment on the microstructure and hardness of Inconel X-750

Abstract

This work describes a post-weld heat treatment for a precipitation-hardened nickel alloy. Inconel X-750 is a nickel-based superalloy for gas tungsten arc welding processes. The materials were heat-treated in two steps: solution and aging. The post-weld heat treatment variables examined in this study included post-weld heat treatment temperatures of 705°C, 775°C, and 845°C and post-weld heat treatment time of 2–24 h in 2-h increments. The resulting materials were examined using the full factorial design of experiments to determine the resulting material hardness and observed with optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in the fusion zone and heat-affected zone. The results show that a longer post-weld heat treatment time corresponds to larger γ′ precipitates and a smaller amount of Cr23C6 at the grain boundaries, which can decrease the overall hardness. The post-weld heat treatment analysis indicates that an increase in the amount of γ′ results in better mechanical properties for particles with octagonal shapes and a small size. A factorial analysis, which was conducted on the relationship between the post-weld heat treatment temperature and time to the hardness of the fusion zone, had a 95% confidence level.