Improvement of the creep resistance of FeCo–2V alloy arising from a small addition of Cr

•A small addition of Cr leads to a great improvement of creep resistance.•Evolution of the structure of precipitates is studied with increasing creep time.•Crystallographic relation between matrix and precipitates is identified.•Origin on the role of the Cr addition in creep resistance is clarified.

This work presents our recent findings that a small addition (0.5 at. %) of Cr to FeCo–2V alloy leads to a great improvement in creep resistance. High resolution electron microscopy was applied to study microstructural evolution of the Cr added alloy during the creep process performed at 600 °C under 200 MPa. At an initial step of the creep, there appear plate-like precipitates with bcc/fcc structure as well as some rod-like ones with hcp structure. A coherent relationship is identified between the precipitates and bcc FeCo matrix. With prolonging the creep, the rod-like hcp precipitates are revealed to remain in the bcc matrix, showing a good stability under the creep condition and in turn resulting in piling-up of dislocations to a great extent around the precipitates. In addition, the Cr added alloy is shown to have a large stress exponent of 8.4, indicating a strong interaction between dislocations and the hcp precipitates.