Hot Workability Investigation of an Fe-Al-Ta Alloy Using Deformation Processing Maps

Fe-Al-Ta alloys are expected to replace high-alloyed steels in steam turbine blades. However, the mechanical properties of the forged blades are still not optimal due to limited grain refinement during hot forging and the coarse-grained microstructure inherited from the as-cast precursor. It is, therefore, essential to investigate the hot deformation behavior of the alloy to identify the optimum range for the deformation parameters leading to good hot workability with significant grain refinement. The hot deformation behavior and hot workability of an Fe-25Al-1.5Ta (at.%) alloy were investigated in the present work using constitutive modeling and the concept of processing maps. Uniaxial compression tests were conducted in a strain rate range from 0.0013 s−1 to 1 s−1 and in a temperature range from 900 °C to 1100 °C, where a disordered A2 α-(Fe, Al) matrix phase along with a C14-(Fe, Al)2Ta Laves phase were confirmed by X-ray diffraction. The flow stress–strain curves showed a broad maximum followed by a slight drop in stress until a steady state was reached. The optimum processing window for the studied alloy was located at 910–1060 °C/0.0013–0.005 s−1, where the efficiency of the power dissipation (η) and strain rate sensitivity (m) reached 50% and 0.33, respectively. The material underwent a combination of dynamic recovery and dynamic recrystallization over the whole tested deformation range. No flow instabilities were predicted based on Prasad’s flow instability criterion when deformation was performed up to a true strain of 0.5 and 0.8, indicating a high degree of hot workability of the studied alloy over the entire deformation range tested. The current study reveals a well-suited parameter range for the safe and efficient deformation of Fe-Al-Ta alloys, which may contribute to the optimization of the thermomechanical processing of this alloy.