The effect of ternary alloying element Al and quaternary alloying element Co on the martensitic transformation of ZrCu-based shape memory alloy was investigated. The results show that the addition of Al and Co in ZrCu alloy decreases both the martensitic transformation temperature and the martensitic transformation temperature hysteresis. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) observations reveal that theCm martensite structure is the preferential formation phase. The intervariant structures in ZrCuAlCo alloy are (021) type I twins, while the dominant substructures inside the martensite variant are the (001) compound twins. With the increase of Co content, tensile fracture strength and strain are improved obviously.
High-dispersed nanoscale Cu precipitates often contribute to extremely high strength due to precipitation hardening,and whereas usually lead to degraded toughness for especially ferritic steels.Hence,it is important to understand the formation behaviors of the Cu precipitates.High-resolution transmission electron microscopy(TEM)is utilized to investigate the structure of Cu precipitates thermally formed in a high-strength low-alloy(HSLA)steel.The Cu precipitates were generally formed from solid solution and at the crystallographic defects such as martensite lath boundaries and dislocations.The Cu precipitates in the same aging condition have various structure of BCC,9 R and FCC,and the structural evolution does not greatly correlate with the actual sizes.The presence of different structures in an individual Cu precipitate is observed,which reflects the structural transformation occurring locally to relax the strain energy.The multiply additions in the steel possibly make the Cu precipitation more complex compared to the binary or the ternary Fe-Cu alloys with Ni or Mn additions.This research gives constructive suggestions on alloying design of Cu-bearing alloy steels.
