Computational design of precipitation strengthened austenitic heat-resistant steels

Abstract

A new genetic alloy design approach based on thermodynamic and kinetic principles is presented to calculate the optimal composition of MX carbonitrides precipitation strengthened austenitic heat-resistant steels. Taking the coarsening of the MX carbonitrides as the process controlling the life time for steels in high temperature use, the high temperature strength is calculated as a function of steel chemistry, service temperature and time. New steel compositions for different service conditions are found yielding optimal combinations of strength and stability of the strengthening precipitation for specific applications such as fire-resistant steels (short-time property guarantee) and creep-resistant steels (long-time property guarantee). Using the same modelling approach, the high temperature strength and lifetime of existing commercial austenitic creep-resistant steels were also calculated and a good qualitative agreement with reported experimental results was obtained. According to the evaluation parameter employed, the newly defined steel compositions may have higher and more stable precipitation strengthening factors than existing high-temperature precipitate-strengthened austenite steels.

Keywords:

• alloy design
• creep
• steel
• thermodynamics
• genetic algorithm
• coarsening
• precipitation

Acknowledgements

This work was carried out with financial support of the Novel Aerospace Materials group, TU Delft and the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC).