Effects of electric field treatment on microstructures of GH4199 superalloy after long-term aging

The effects of electric field intensity and treatment temperature on the microstructures of GH4199 superalloy after long-term aging were investigated. The results show that the number and size of carbides and TCP(sigma phase and mu phase) phase in the alloy increase with increasing electric field intensity at the same heat treatment temperature and holding time. While the number and size of carbides and TCP phase are weekly influenced by treatment temperature with lower electric field intensity of 2 kV/cm. When the treat temperature is up to 1 093 K, annealing twins appear in the alloy, and the number of twins increases with increasing holding time. Since the electric field can provide the enough energy for the movement of vacancies and atom, it is considered that the nucleus of the twins formed with formation stack faults due to the mismatch of local atom in crystal caused by the vacancies, and the twins will grow with the increase of holding time. Meanwhile, such promoting effects on atom movement of the electric field increase with the increase of the electric field intensity, meantime the carbides and TCP phase grow fast with the increase of electric field intensity.