Effect of tungsten and gallium on the structure and magnetic and mechanical properties of Fe-Cr-Co alloys

Effects of the alloying additions of W and Ga, cold deformation, and regimes of heat treatment on the magnetic and mechanical properties of precipitation-hardening Fe-Cr-Co alloys have been investigated. It has been shown that the alloying with tungsten leads to a strengthening of the α solid solution and an additional jumplike increase in strength after deformation and age hardening. The coercive force grows simultaneously with an increase in strength; the structure of the alloy in this case contains a large concentration of linear defects (dislocations), which indicates an important contribution of magnetoelastic energy to the formation of the high-coercivity state and of elastic strains to the increase in the strength properties. The character of fracture becomes brittle. The modifying of the alloy with gallium leads to an increase in plasticity due to the dispersion of the structure, formation of retained austenite in it, and formation of an interphase layer more uniform in composition. The character of fracture changes from brittle to brittle-ductile. A high-strength magnetically hard material has been obtained with Hc = 90–125 A/cm, σm = 120–130 G cm3/g, Br = 0.6–0.65 T, σ0.2 = 1300–1600 MPa, and δ = 2.0–4.6%.