An Experimental and Numerical Study of Quenching-Induced Residual Stresses under the Effect of Dynamic Strain Aging in an IN718 Superalloy Disc

The effects of dynamic strain aging (DSA) on residual stresses generated in Ni-base superalloys during heat treatments are not well understood. In this study, the residual stress field induced by water quenching an IN718 disc while undergoing DSA is studied using coupled thermo-mechanical finite element (FE) analyses in conjunction with neutron diffraction (ND) measurements. A visco-plastic constitutive model that incorporates the effect of DSA is proposed to describe the experimentally observed negative strain rate sensitivity and abnormal temperature dependence phenomena in the stress-strain response of solid solution treated IN718. The predicted quenching residual stresses in the disc agree well with the ND measurements. Due to the DSA, a propagating high plastic strain rate region can be identified in the disc during the early stages of the quenching process. Due to the negative strain rate sensitivity and abnormal temperature dependence effects caused by DSA, the predicted residual stresses are approximately 10% greater than when those two effects are not accounted for. The effects of different convection heat transfer conditions in the FE model are examined and discussed. It is found that the convection heat transfer coefficients have a great influence both on the disc residual stresses and DSA-related plastic strain rate field predictions.