The Role of Substrate Surface Roughness on in-Pack Aluminization Kinetics of Ni-Base Superalloy

Abstract

The Ni-base superalloys facing high temperature require further protection against high temperature oxidation. One of the most common methods providing high temperature oxidation resistance is the production of aluminide layers (NiAl-coatings). It is known that the thickness of produced diffusion layer can be controlled by the temperature and time of aluminization process. However, no research on the effect of surface roughness on aluminization kinetics was conducted so far. Then, to elucidate the effect of surface roughness on aluminization kinetics, diffusion layers were obtained by an in-pack aluminization method on the IN 617 alloy with differently prepared surfaces, namely polished, ground using 220 grit SiC paper and 80 grit SiC paper. The obtained results revealed that different surface preparation does not affect the chemical and phase composition of produced layers. However, a strong influence of surface preparation method on aluminide layers thicknesses was observed. Namely, it was found that the increase in substrate surface roughness results in an increase of aluminization kinetics. The dependence between surface roughness and thickness of aluminide layers was found to be logarithmic. Moreover, it was found that the aluminization kinetics is influenced, especially at early stages of the aluminization process.