On the Role of Boride in the Structural Integrity of a Turbine Disc Superalloy’s Solid State Weld

This work reports the melting of boride precipitates along the grain boundary of a supposedly solid state welding of a polycrystalline superalloy, and discusses its attendant effect on the hot ductility behaviour of the alloy. Nickel-based superalloy used for this study was previously processed by hot extrusion of argon atomized powered followed by forging. The alloy was solution heat treated at 1120 °C, aged at 760 °C and subsequently air cooled to room temperature. Thereafter, it was welded by inertial friction welding (IFW) at a forging pressure of 250 MPa and finally stressed relieved at 760 °C for 8 hours. The microstructures of welded samples were studied by scanning and scanning transmission electron microscopes. Gleeble hot ductility test was carried out on tensile specimen machined from the welded sample. The microstructures of the welded alloy shows that boride precipitates liquated along the grain boundary within the heat affected zone (HAZ) as a result of rapid heating of IFW. The results of hot ductility test revealed that the melting of boride lowered the hot ductility of the alloy. It was concluded that the boride precipitates liquated along the grain boundary of the nickel-based superalloy during solid state welding and lowered its hot ductility.