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It is shown that for alloys with boron content of 0.1–6.5% (wt.) and carbon content of 0.3–4.0% (wt.) without pretreatment no formation of cubic boron carbide takes place under crystallization. The cubic boron carbide can be obtained by pre-annealing at a temperature of 1173 K for an hour and further heating to a temperature of 30 K above the liquidus and cooling of alloys with boron content of 2.5–4.0% (wt.) and carbon content of 0.8–3.0% (wt.). Formation of crystals of cubic boron carbide is possible as a constituent of multiphase inclusions for alloys with boron content of 0.1–0.3% (wt.) and carbon content up to 0.4–0.5% (wt). It should be noted that for alloys with boron content of 4.2–6.0% (wt.) and  carbon content of more than 3.0% (wt.) the pretreatment does not result in formation of cubic boron carbide. The increase in boron content in the alloy to 0.3–0.5% (wt.) and carbon content to 0.5–0.7% (wt.) leads to formation of the eutectic α-Fe+Fe23(CB)6, which is arranged on the boundaries of pearlite grains. The thermodynamic functions of Fe23(CB)6 cubic boron carbide are derived for the first time using the Hillert and Staffonsson model and accounting for the first degree approximation of high-temperature expansion of the thermodynamic potential for binary alloys. We obtain temperature dependences of such thermodynamic functions for Fе23(CB)6 phase as Gibbs energy, entropy, enthalpy and heat  capacity CP , as well as calculate their values at the formation temperature of the phase. The approach used in this paper enables to give the most complete from the thermodynamic point of view description of cubic boron carbide formed from a liquid.

In this work we study the structural properties of hypoeutectic and hypereutectic Fe-B alloys, depending on the temperature of heating above the liquidus line and the cooling rate. Experiments were carried out for the Fe-B system alloys with boron content of 2.0 - 4.5 % (wt.), the rest is iron. To determine physical properties of the alloys microstructural and X-ray diffraction analysis were used. It is shown that overheating of the molten alloy to 150 K above the liquidus line and aftercooling leads to complete suppression of the formation of primary iron crystals in the hypoeutectic alloys and partially to suppression of Fe2B formation in the hypereutectic alloys of the Fe-B system. For the first time it is shown that heating of Fe-B hypoeutectic alloys to 150 K above the liquidus line and cooling with a rate of 103 K/s lead to formation of Fe3B boride in as-cast state, which was present in the eutectic colony.