Nano-scale characterization of white layer in broached Inconel 718

TEM observations showed that the broached white layer consists of nano-sized grains, mostly in the range of 20-50 nm. The crystallographic texture detected by TKD further revealed that the refined microstructure is primarily caused by strong shear deformation. Co-located Al-rich and Nb-rich fine clusters have been identified by APT, which are most likely to be γ′ and γ′′ clusters in a form of co-precipitates, where the clusters showed elongated and aligned appearance associated with the severe shearing history. The microstructural characteristics and crystallography of the broached white layer suggest that it was essentially formed by adiabatic shear localization in which the dominant metallurgical process is rotational dynamic recrystallization based on mechanically-driven subgrain rotations. The grain refinement within the white layer led to an increase of the surface nano-hardness by 14% and a reduction in elastic modulus by nearly 10% compared to that of the bulk material. This is primarily due to the greatly increased volume fraction of grain boundaries, when the grain size was reduced down to the nanoscale.