Effect of Thermal History on Microstructural Changes in Aluminized Nickel-Based Single-Crystal Superalloy

The effect of the thermal history on microstructural changes in aluminized and Pt-aluminized Ni-based single-crystal superalloys was investigated. The superalloy substrates were first electropolished to get rid of the residual surface strain. Then, Pt was electrodeposited and vacuum annealing was conducted for some of the substrates, and aluminized and Pt-aluminized specimens were prepared using the conventional aluminizing process. It was found that in the aluminized specimens, voids were formed in the vicinity of the substrate/coating interfaces during thermal cyclic heating, whereas secondary diffusion zones (SDZ) were formed by isothermal heating. These different microstructural changes of the aluminized specimens can be explained by the kinetics of diffusion between the coating layer and the substrate during the heating/cooling processes. In the Pt-aluminized specimen, on the other hand, secondary reaction zone (SRZ) formation was observed after both thermal cyclic and isothermal treatments. These results can be explained by the polycrystallization of the substrate surface during the annealing process, which promotes interdiffusion, resulting in the formation of an SRZ.