DEVELOPMENT OF FE3AL BASED INTERMETALLIC ALLOYS BY ELECTROSLAG REMELTING

A process route comprising air induction melting (AIM) and electroslag remelting (ESR) using steel scrap and commercial aluminium is describ ed for production of an Fe3Al based ordered intermetallic alloy. The E SR cast alloy exhibited room temperature mechanical properties superio r to those of conventionally processed material using purer raw materi al as feed stock. Hot forging at 1 273 K refines the microstructure bu t only a marginal improvement in mechanical properties is obtained ind icating that the properties of as-cast ESR product are comparable to t hat of the wrought product, as is the case in steels, and that hot wor king is required only to achieve the desired component dimensions. To screen the sample from environmental moisture during testing, tensile testing was also carried out after coating the samples with oil. There is no significant improvement in mechanical properties after oil coat ing contrary to the results reported in literature. This may be attrib uted to significant levels of carbon present in the alloy in this work .