High-Temperature Deformation of Inconel 718PlusTM

Since its introduction in 2003, alloy 718PlusTM spurred a lot of interest owing to its increased maximum service temperature over conventional Inconel 718 (704 °C versus 650 °C), good formability, and weldability together with its moderate cost. Understanding the high-temperature deformation characteristics and microstructural evolution is still of interest to many. It is known that the service performance and hot-flow behavior of this alloy are a strong function of the microstructure, particularly the grain size. To develop precise microstructure evolution models and foresee the final microstructure, it is important to understand how and under which forming conditions softening and precipitation processes occur concurrently. In this work, the softening behavior, its mechanisms, and the precipitation characteristics of 718PlusTM were investigated in two parallel studies. While cylindrical compression tests were employed to observe the hot-flow behavior, the precipitation behavior and other microstructural phenomena such as particle coarsening were tracked via hardness measurements. A precipitation–temperature–time (PTT) diagram was reported, and modeling of the flow curves via hyperbolic sine model was discussed in the light of the PTT behavior. Both “apparent” approach and “physically based” approach are implemented and two different sets of parameters were reported for the latter. Finally, recovery and recrystallization kinetics are described via Estrin–Mecking and Bergstrom, and Avrami kinetics, respectively.