Study of the thermal stability of nanoparticle distributions in an oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic alloys

Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) ferritic alloys have a vast applicability due to their excellent mechanical resistance at high temperature. The precipitate dispersion of the nanoparticles in the matrix has a great effect on the creep properties of the material; in order to study the kinetics of precipitation of Y2Ti2O7 nanoparticles in Fe–14Cr1W ODS alloy, annealing experiments were taken at different temperatures (1050 °C–1400 °C) and for different times (0.5–10 h), then these samples were characterized by the small-angle neutron scattering technique (SANS) under magnetic field and TEM investigations and microhardness measurements were performed to gather nanoscopic information about the dispersed oxide particles size.