Elastic Constants of Single Crystal Hastelloy X at Elevated Temperatures

An acoustic time of flight technique is described in detail for measuring the elastic constants of cubic single crystals that allows for the constants to be determined at elevated temperature. Although the overall technique is not new, various aspects of the present work may prove extremely useful to othersinterested in finding these values, especially for aerospace materials applications. Elastic constants were determined for the nickel based alloy, Hastelloy X from room temperature to 1000°C. Accurate elastic constants were needed as part of an effort to predict both polycrystal mechanical properties and the nature of grain induced heterogeneous mechanical response. The increased accuracy of the acoustically determined constants resulted in up to a 15 percent change in the predicted stresses in individual grains. These results indicate that the use of elastic single crystal constants of pure nickel as an approximation for the constants of gas turbine single crystal alloys, which is often done today, is inaccurate.