Effect of Reheat Treatment on Microstructural Refurbishment and Hardness of the As-cast Inconel 738

This work investigates the effect of rejuvenation heat treatment conditions for refurbishment of the long-term serviced gas turbine blades, which were made of as-cast nickel base superalloy grade, Inconel 738. The reheat treatment conditions consist of solutionizing treatments at temperatures of 1,438, 1,458 and 1,478 K for 14.4 ks and aging treatments at temperatures of 1,133, 1,148 and 1,163 K for 43.2, 86.4, 129.6 and 172.8 ks. The results show that increase in aging times results in continuous increase of size and area fraction of gamma prime (gamma') particles. The higher solutionizing temperature leads to the lower area fraction and smaller size of gamma prime particles. Regarding the microstructure characteristics, the most proper reheat treatment condition should be solutionizing at temperature of 1,438 K for 14.4 ks and aging at temperature of 1,133 K for 172.8 ks, which provides the highest area fraction of gamma prime particles in proper size.