In this study, the influuence from crystal orientation on the thermomehanical fatigue (TMF) behaviour of the recently developed single-rystal superalloy STAL-15 is considered, both from an experimental and a nite element (FE) perspective. Experimental results show that there is a strong inuence from the elastic stiffness, with respect to the loading direction, on the TMF life. However, the results also indicate that the number of active slip planes duringdeformation inuence the TMF life, where specimens with a higher number of active slip planes are favoured compared to specimens with fewer active slip planes. The higher number of active slip planes results in a more widespread deformation compared to a more conentrated deformation when only one slip plane is active. Deformation bands with smeared and elongated  γ-precipitates together with deformation twinning were found to be major deformation mechanisms, where the twins primarily were observed in specimens with several active slip planes. From an FE-perspective, therystal orientation with respect to the loading direction is quantied and adopted into a framework which makes it possible to describe the internal crystallographic arrangement and its entities in a material model. Further, a material model which incorporates the crystalorientation is able to predict the number of slip planes observed from microstructural observations, as well as the elasticstiness of the material with respect to the loading direction.

On the day of the defence day the status of this article was Manuscript.

The work has been financially supported by Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery AB in Finspang, Sweden, and the Swedish Energy Agency, via the Research Consortium of Materials Technology for Thermal Energy Processes, Grant no. KME-702. In addition, the support from the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU #2009-00971) is also acknowledged.

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Oxidized MC carbides which act as main crack initiation sites in a polycrystalline superalloy under thermal-mechanical fatigue (TMF) conditions at 850°C were studied. Microstructural observations in the TMF tested specimens were compared to findings from bulk samples exposed isothermally in air at 850°C for 30 hours in the absence of any external applied load. Carbides were found to oxidize rapidly after exposure at 850°C for 30 hours resulting in surface eruptions corresponding to oxidation products, from where micro-cracks initiated. Plastic deformation due to volume expansion of the often porous oxidized carbides led to high dislocation densities in the adjacent matrix as revealed by controlled electron channeling contrast imaging. The high dislocation density facilitated the dissolution kinetics of c¢ precipitates by segregation and diffusion of chromium and cobalt along the dislocations via pipe diffusion, resulting in the formation of soft recrystallized grains. Atom probe tomography revealed substantial compositional differences between the recrystallized grains and the adjacent undeformed c matrix. Similar observations were made for the TMF tested alloy. Our observations provide new insights into the true detrimental role of oxidized MC carbides on the crack initiation performance of polycrystalline superalloys under TMF.

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