Morphological Evolution of Fe-Rich Precipitates in a Cu-2.0Fe Alloy During Isothermal Treatment

doi:10.11900/0412.1961.2021.00568

Acta Metall Sin

2023, Vol. 59

Issue (12): 1665-1674 DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2021.00568

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Morphological Evolution of Fe-Rich Precipitates in a Cu-2.0Fe Alloy During Isothermal Treatment

CHEN Kaixuan¹, LI Zongxuan¹, WANG Zidong¹^,²(

), Demange Gilles³, CHEN Xiaohua², ZHANG Jiawei¹, WU Xuehua¹, Zapolsky Helena³

¹School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
²State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
³Group of Materials Science, University of Rouen Normandy, 76801 Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, France

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CHEN Kaixuan, LI Zongxuan, WANG Zidong, Demange Gilles, CHEN Xiaohua, ZHANG Jiawei, WU Xuehua, Zapolsky Helena. Morphological Evolution of Fe-Rich Precipitates in a Cu-2.0Fe Alloy During Isothermal Treatment. Acta Metall Sin, 2023, 59(12): 1665-1674.

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Abstract

The morphology of precipitates changes during coarsening regimes, thereby resulting in the modification of mechanical properties of metallic materials. Hence, understanding the morphological evolution in precipitates is critical to tailor the macroscopic properties of industrial alloys. In particular, the morphology of Fe-rich precipitates in Cu alloys is complex, and it evolves from sphere to cube to petal and finally splits, which has been observed during casting and furnace cooling. However, morphological changes in Fe-rich precipitates during isothermal treatment remain unclear; thus, revealing the mechanism of morphological evolution is necessary. In this study, the relationship among the morphological evolution behavior of Fe-rich precipitates in Cu-2.0Fe (mass fraction, %) alloy, temperature, and time under different isothermal-treated processes was analyzed using SEM and TEM coupled with phase-field modeling. Results show morphology changes from a sphere in nanoscale to a cube in submicron scale to a four-branched petal in the submicron scale, and to a multi-branched petal in micron scale during coarsening of Fe-rich precipitates in Cu-2.0Fe alloy isothermally treated at 924, 964, and 984^oC (i.e., the temperature range of the fcc Fe phase). The size of multi-branched petal-like Fe-rich precipitates and the number of branches increase with the increase of isothermal temperature and holding time. During coarsening of multi-branched petal-like precipitates, the surrounding small Fe-rich precipitates are engulfed, and thence the number density of the smaller ones in nano and submicron scales decreases when the temperature increases. The modeling result elucidates the multiple morphological evolution of Fe-rich precipitates, which is identical to the experiments, under the effects of interfacial energy, elastic energy, and chemical driving force. In particular, the combined effect of the latter two energies induces the initiation and growth of secondary branches out of primary branches in the four-branched petals, thereby producing multi-branched petal-like precipitates.

Key words: copper alloy precipitate morphological evolution material characterization phase-field simulation

Received: 16 December 2021

ZTFLH:

TG166.2

Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(52101119);Beijing Municipal Natural Science Fo-undation(2214072);Interdisciplinary Research Project for Young Teachers of USTB (Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities)(FRF-IDRY-20-034);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(00007490)

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	Articles by authors
	CHEN Kaixuan
	LI Zongxuan
	WANG Zidong
	Demange Gilles
	CHEN Xiaohua
	ZHANG Jiawei
	WU Xuehua
	Zapolsky Helena

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https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2021.00568 OR https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2023/V59/I12/1665

Fig.1 Characterization of Fe-rich precipitates in the air-cooled Cu-2.0Fe alloy (a, b) SEM (a) and TEM (b) images showing the cuboidal and petal-like precipitates (c) HRTEM image showing a petal-like precipitate (Inset shows the SAED pattern of the precipitate) (d) TEM-EDS result of the petal-like precipitate in Fig.1c

Fig.2 Characterization of Fe-rich precipitates in the water-cooled Cu-2.0Fe alloy
(a) SEM image showing no precipitate
(b) HAADF-STEM image showing the nano-sized spherical precipitates
(c) HRTEM image of two nano-sized spherical precipitates (Inset shows the FFT pattern of the square zone)
(d) TEM-EDS result of the spherical precipitate marked by the arrow in Fig.2b

Fig.3 SEM images (a, d, g) and corresponding EDS mappings of Cu (b, e, h) and Fe (c, f, i) elements showing Fe-rich precipitates in the isothermal-treated Cu-2.0Fe alloy (a-c) 924^oC, 6 h (d-f) 964^oC, 6 h (g-i) 984^oC, 6 h

Fig.4 Magnified SEM images of the square zones in Fig.3 of the isothermal-treated Cu-2.0Fe alloys
(a) 924^oC, 6 h (b) 964^oC, 6 h (c) 984^oC, 6 h

Fig.5 Size distributions of the precipitates after 924^oC, 6 h (a), 964^oC, 6 h (b), and 984^oC, 6 h (c) isothermal treatments, and number density of the small precipitates after isothermal treatments for 6 h (d) (d_mean—mean diameter)

Fig.6 SEM (a, d, g) images and corresponding EDS mappings of Cu (b, e, h) and Fe (c, f, i) elements showing Fe-rich precipitates in the isothermal-treated Cu-2.0Fe alloys at 964^oC for 1 h (a-c), 6 h (d-f), and 12 h (g-i)

Fig.7 Morphological evolutions of the Fe-rich single precipitate in Cu-Fe system with an average Fe concentration $c ¯$ of 0.02 at 984^oC obtained in phase field modeling (The figures show the concentration fields of Fe-rich precipitate at different time steps t*. Initial configuration contains an iron pure spherical nucleus of radius R = 4Δx, in which Δx is the grid spacing. The size of the simulation box is 1024²)
(a) t^* = 1000 (b) t^* = 20000 (c) t^* = 70000 (d) t^* = 100000 (e) t^* = 150000 (f) t^* = 200000

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