Misfit and the mechanism of high temperature and low stress creep of Ni-base single crystal superalloys

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The present work proposes a new elementary deformation mechanism which governs high temperature and low stress creep of single crystal superalloys (SXs), where the misfit between the γ- and the γ′-phase plays a central role. In the coherent two phase SX microstructure, there is a tendency to minimize the overall elastic strain energy. This is accomplished by the formation of dislocation networks in the γ-phase close to the γ/γ’-interfaces. The stress fields of the network dislocations and misfit stresses accommodate each other to keep the overall strain energy of the system at a minimum. Previous work has shown that dynamic recovery is associated with knitting-out reactions, where dislocations from the network shear the γ’-phase and annihilate with dislocations of opposite sign on the other side of the γ’-phase region. Due to the presence of the misfit this results in an increase of elastic strain energy which is counteracted by coupled knitting-in reactions where newly arriving γ-channel dislocations re-establish the minimum energy configuration. Here we provide microstructural evidence for knitting-out and knitting-in reactions and show that while these reactions clearly occur, dislocation network spacings stay constant. The misfit between the γ- and the γ′-phase accounts for a constant network spacing. Dislocation networks are not static but represent dynamic steady state equilibrium structures in an evolving microstructure. Knitting regular networks requires climb processes which are suggested to be rate controlling. This new view of high temperature and low stress creep mechanism of SXs allows to rationalize previous results published in the literature.