The BCC-FCC Phase Transformation Pathways and Crystal Orientation Relationships in Dual Phase Materials From Al-(Co)-Cr-Fe-Ni Alloys

The alloy system Al-(Co)-Cr-Fe-Ni contains compositional ranges where a solid state BCC-FCC phase transformation leads to dual-phase materials composed of face-centered cubic (FCC) and body-centered cubic (BCC) phases with nearly equal volume fraction. The microstructure arising from this transformation at slow cooling rates is the classical Widmanstatten structure, with FCC-laths and colonies growing from grain boundaries into the parent BCC-B2 grain. Very distinct microstructures are obtained, when Widmanstatten growth is kinetically suppressed e.g., during continuous cooling with high cooling rates. These novel microstructures are associated with the spinodal decomposition of the parent BCC-B2 such that FCC growth occurs during the spinodal decomposition or upon annealing from a metastable, fully spinodal state. We review the microstructures at case as function of the imposed cooling regimes for the Co-free medium entropy alloy AlCrFe2Ni2. One of them, termed ultrafine vermicular microstructure, involves a characteristic and novel crystal orientation relationship (OR) between FCC and BCC. We identify the common planes and directions of this OR using electron backscatter diffraction maps to be {111}(FCC) parallel to {12 $$(1) over bar}(BCC) and <(1) over bar 01 >(FCC) parallel to <(1) over bar0 (1) over bar >(BCC), respectively. Embedded is a second OR with {1 (3) over bar(1) over bar}(FCC) parallel to {(1) over bar 03}(BCC) and < 101 >(FCC) parallel to < 010 >(BCC). We further show that the vermicular FCC phase contains a high amount of lattice strain and sub-grain boundaries with disorientation angles in the range from 2 to 12 degrees, as a result of the solid-state phase transformation.