Influence of Laves Phase Precipitation and Coarsening on High‐Temperature Strength of Ferritic Stainless Steels

Abstract

Abstract Downsizing trends in the design of internal combustion engines require ferritic steels with greater strength at elevated temperatures. One method of improving the high‐temperature strength is precipitation hardening with intermetallic phases such as the Laves phase. Thermodynamic calculations show, that the elements Nb and Si contribute to the Laves phase formation strongly. In this work, the influence of intermetallic precipitates on the mechanical properties of three different ferritic FeCr stainless steels was investigated and compared to a reference material. The three main hardening mechanisms – precipitation–hardening, grain refinement, and solid‐solution strengthening – were studied with appropriate alloy compositions and thermo mechanical treatment. Investigations were performed with uniaxial compression tests of samples aged isothermally at 900°C for up to 1440 h. It is shown that, the solid solution effect of Mo and W increases the high‐temperature strength about 40%, also after long‐term annealing. The contribution of the Laves phase precipitates on the high‐temperature strength is rather small due to their rapid coarsening.