Hot deformation behavior and flow stress modeling of coarse-grain nickel-base GH4151 superalloy ingot materials in cogging

Due to the high deformation resistance and poor thermal ductility of the new cast GH4151 alloy ingots, cracks are easy to occur during cogging process. For clarifying the effects of deformation parameters on microstructural evolution and dynamic recrystallization (DRX) nucleation mechanisms. In this work, the causes of crack formation and extension were first investigated using SEM and EBSD. The study revealed that the reasons for crack formation and propagation are the MC carbides at the original grain boundaries, large-size γ′ phase, residual eutectic phases, and tiny pores near the grain boundaries. Subsequently, a series of hot compression tests were performed using a Thermecamastor-Z thermo-mechanical simulator at temperatures ranging from 1080 °C to 1160 °C and a strain rate range of 0.01–10 s−1. The constitutive equation of the Arrhenius model and the hot working map was established, determining activation energy(Q) of 1086.58 kJ·mol−1. Large-size γ′ is coherent with the matrix. For the γ+γ′ dual-phase region, heterogeneous strain-induced dynamic recrystallization (HDRX) occurs, and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) is the main nucleation mechanism for DRX. However, for γ single-phase region, DDRX plays a more significant role. Furthermore, the MC phase (>1 μm) has different crystal orientations with the γ matrix and acts as sites for recrystallization through particle-stimulated nucleation (PSN). Finally, a fine and uniform grain structure can be obtained in the temperature range of 1120–1135 °C and the strain rate range of 0.1 s−1 to 1 s−1.