Superplastic Ceramics (With Emphasis on Iron Carbide)

This final report summarizes work accomplished on superplastic ceramics with special emphasis on developing processing methods for creating ultra-fine structures in iron carbide, quantifying its microstructure and assessing its superplastic characteristics. The two principal objectives of this program are (1) to develop processing methods for achieving stable ultrafine grained (in the order of one micron) carbide-base materials, and (2) to evaluate and understand the mechanical behavior of ultrafine grained carbides at high temperatures, with special attention to superplastic flow and failure mechanisms.