Microstructure and Charpy impact properties of 12–14Cr oxide dispersion-strengthened ferritic steels

Abstract

This paper describes the microstructure and Charpy impact properties of 12–14 Cr ODS ferritic steels fabricated by mechanical alloying of pure Fe, Cr, W, Ti and Y 2O 3 powders in a Retsch ball mill in argon atmosphere, followed by hot isostatic pressing at 1100 °C under 200 MPa for 4 h and heat treatment at 850 °C for 1 h. Weak Charpy impact properties were obtained in the case of both types of as-hipped materials. In the case of 14Cr materials, the weak Charpy properties appeared related to a bimodal grain size distribution and a heterogeneous dislocation density between the coarse and fine grains. No changes in microstructure were evidenced after heat treatment at 850 °C. Significant improvement in the transition temperature and upper shelf energy of 12Cr materials was obtained by heat treatment at 850 °C for 1 h, which was attributed to the formation of smaller grains, homogenous in size and containing fewer dislocations, with respect to the as-hipped microstructure. This modified microstructure results in a good compromise between strength and Charpy impact properties.