High cycle fatigue and fracture behaviour of a hot isostatically pressed nickel-based superalloy

Powder of a nickel-based superalloy, RR1000, has been hot isostatically pressed (HIPped) at a supersolvus temperature and post-HIP heat treated to produce different microstructures. Microstructures were investigated using a scanning electron microscope together with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer and a wave-length dispersive X-ray spectrometer. High cycle four-point bending fatigue and tension-tension fatigue tests have been performed on the fabricated samples. It was found that HIPped and aged samples showed the best four-point bending fatigue limit while HIPped and solution-treated and aged samples had the lowest fatigue limit. The four-point bending fatigue crack initiations all occurred from the sample surfaces either at the sites of inclusion clusters or by cleavage through large grains on the surfaces. The tension-tension fatigue crack initiation occurred mainly due to large hafnia inclusion clusters, with lower fatigue lives for samples where inclusions were closer to the surface. Crack initiation at the compact Al₂O₃ inclusion cluster led to a much higher fatigue life than found when cracks were initiated by large hafnia inclusion clusters. The tension-tension fatigue limits were shown to decrease with increased testing temperature (from room temperature to 700 °C).