| Primary creep occurring at intermediate temperatures (650°C to 850°C) and loads greater than 500 MPa has been shown to result in severe creep strain, often exceeding 5-10%, during the first few hours of creep testing. This investigation examines how the addition of rhenium and changes in aging heat treatment affect the primary creep behavior of PWA 1480 and PWA 1484. To aid in the understanding of rhenium's role in primary creep, 3wt% Re was added to PWA 1480 to create a second generation version of PWA 1480. The age heat treatments used for creep testing were either 704°C/24 hr. or 871°C/32hr. All three alloys exhibited the presence of secondary gamma' confirmed by scanning electron microscopy and local electrode atom probe techniques. These aging heat treatments resulted in the reduction of the primary creep strain produced in PWA 1484 from 24% to 16% at 704°C/862 MPa and produced a slight dependence of the tensile properties of PWA 1480 on aging heat treatment temperature.;For all test temperatures, the high temperature age resulted in a significant decrease in primary creep behavior of PWA 1484 and a longer lifetime for all but the lowest test temperature. The primary creep behavior of PWA 1480 and PWA 1480+Re did not display any significant dependence on age heat treatment. The creep rupture life of PWA 1480 is greater than PWA 1484 at 704°C, but significantly shorter at 760°C and 815°C. PWA 1480+Re, however, displayed the longest lifetime of all three alloys at both 704°C and 815°C (PWA 1480+Re was not tested at 760°C). Qualitative TEM analysis revealed that PWA 1484 deformed by large dislocation "ribbons" spanning large regions of material. PWA 1480, however, deformed primarily due to matrix dislocations and the creation of interfacial dislocation networks between the gamma and gamma' phases. PWA 1480+ contained stacking faults as well, though they acted on multiple slip systems generating work hardening and forcing the onset of secondary creep. X-ray diffraction and JMatPro calculations were also used to gain insight into the cause of the differences in behaviors. |
