Recrystallization of FeAl and Ni3Al with and without boron

Abstract

Since the brittleness of many strongly ordered intermetallic compounds at low temperature makes imparting sufficient strain for recrystallization difficult, there have been few reports of their recrystallization kinetics. The present paper reports a short study of the recrystallization kinetics of both polycrystalline Ni{sub 3}Al and FeAl with and without boron, both of which have limited ductility at room temperature in the unalloyed polycrystalline state. In the present research, because of the difficulty of imparting sufficient deformation for recrystallization to both FeAl and boron-free Ni{sub 3}Al, a hardness indentation method was used to study recrystallization. The idea is to introduce indentation and then determine the temperature at which recrystallization was initiated around the indentation after one hour. In this way, the effect of alloy stoichiometry and of boron on the recrystallization kinetics can be qualitatively assessed.