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Up to now, there are few reports on the yield behavior of Ni-based superalloy during plastic deformation. However, an accurate yield stress model is significant for simulating the plastic forming process by cellular automaton or finite element methods. Therefore, the yield behavior of a solution-treated Ni-based superalloy is studied by hot compression tests. In order to evaluate yield stresses from the measured flow stress curves, the yield process is analyzed in terms of dislocation theory. Then, yield stresses at different deformation temperatures and strain rates are clearly determined. The experimental results show that the yield stresses are highly sensitive to deformation temperature and strain rate. The determined yield stress almost linearly increases with the increase of the logarithm of strain rate or the reciprocal of deformation temperature. A yield stress model is developed to correlate the yield behavior of the studied solution-treated Ni-based superalloy with deformation temperature, strain rate, and strengthening effect of alloying elements. The developed model can well describe the yield behavior of the studied solution-treated Ni-based superalloy.

The flow softening behaviors of a nickel-based superalloy with δ phase are investigated by hot compression tests over wide ranges of deformation temperature and strain rate. Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD), optical microscopy (OM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are employed to study the flow softening mechanisms of the studied superalloy. It is found that the flow softening behaviors of the studied superalloy are sensitive to deformation temperature and strain rate. At high strain rate and low deformation temperature, the obvious flow softening behaviors occur. With the increase of deformation temperature or decrease of strain rate, the flow softening degree becomes weaken. At high strain rate (1s−1), the flow softening is mostly induced by the plastic deformation heating and flow localization. However, at low strain rate domains (0.001-0.01s−1), the effects of deformation heating on flow softening are slight. Moreover, the flow softening at low strain rates is mainly induced by the discontinuous dynamic recrystallization and the dissolution of δ phase (Ni3Nb).

High temperature creep and useful creep life behavior of Al-Cu-Mg (2124-T851 aluminum) alloy was investigated by conducting constant stress uniaxial tensile creep tests at different temperatures (473–563 K) and at stresses ranging from 80 to 200 MPa. It was found that the stress and temperature dependence of minimum creep rate could be successfully described by the power-law creep equation. The power-law stress exponent, n = 5.2 and the activation energy for secondary creep, Q = 164 kJ mol−1, which is close to that observed for self diffusion of aluminum (~140 kJ mol−1). The observed values of n and Q suggest that the secondary creep of 2124-T851 aluminum alloy is governed by the lattice diffusion controlled dislocation climb process. A Monkman-Grant type relationship between minimum creep rate and time for reaching 1.5% creep strain is proposed and could be employed for predicting the useful creep life of 2124-T851 aluminum alloy.