Effect of powder preparation technology on the hot deformation behavior of HIPed P/M nickel-base superalloy FGH96

In this paper, the hot deformation characteristics of P/M nickel-base superalloy FGH96 prepared by different powder preparation technologies were studied in the deformation temperature range from 1000 °C to 1100 °C and the strain rate range from 0.001 s−1 to 1 s−1 using hot compression tests. The peak stress vs. deformation temperature curves and the peak stress vs. strain rate curves were established, respectively. The results show that the specimens prepared by plasma rotation electric pole (PREP) powder were more sensitive to deformation temperature and strain rate. On the basis of the dynamic material model, the processing maps for hot working were developed. The activation energies and Zener–Hollomon parameters were obtained by linear statistical regression method. For the specimens prepared by PREP powder, the peaks of power dissipation mainly located in lower temperature domain (1000–1030 °C), and the efficiencies of power dissipation (EPD) obtained in the strain range from 0.1 to 0.7 were essentially similar. This indicated that strain had a slight influence on processing maps. For the specimens prepared by argon atomization (AA) powder, the effects of strain on EPD and instability domains were significant. The lower activation energies and Z values indicated that the workability of the specimens prepared by AA powder is better than that prepared by PREP powder. Moreover, it was found that effects of the heat treatment time on activation energy and Zener–Hollomon parameter were significant. With the increase of heat treatment time, the dislocation density and the volume fraction of precipitation phase gradually decreased. Microstructural observation demonstrated that the phenomenon of recrystallized grains coarsening existed in the specimens prepared by longer heat treatment time. The heat treatment time of the specimens prepared by AA powder should be appropriately shortened in order to prevent recrystallized grains coarsening.