Timothy P. Gabb and Jack Telesman

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Anita Garg

University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio

Peter Lin, Virgil Provenzano, Robert Heard, and Herbert M. Miller

Integran Technologies USA Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Grain Boundary Engineering the Mechanical

Properties of Allvac 718PlusTM Superalloy

NASA/TM—2010-216935

December 2010
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Timothy P. Gabb and Jack Telesman

Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio

Anita Garg

University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio

Peter Lin, Virgil Provenzano, Robert Heard, and Herbert M. Miller

Integran Technologies USA Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Grain Boundary Engineering the Mechanical

Properties of Allvac 718PlusTM Superalloy

NASA/TM—2010-216935

December 2010

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Glenn Research Center

Cleveland, Ohio 44135

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Level of Review: This material has been technically reviewed by technical management. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 1 

Grain Boundary Engineering the Mechanical Properties 

of Allvac 718PlusTM Superalloy 

Timothy P. Gabb and Jack Telesman 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Glenn Research Center 

Cleveland, Ohio 44135 

Anita Garg 

University of Toledo 

Toledo, Ohio 43606 

Peter Lin, Virgil Provenzano, Robert Heard, and Herbert M. Miller 

Integran Technologies USA Inc. 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15241 

Abstract 

Grain Boundary Engineering (GBE) can enhance the population of structurally-ordered “low ” 

Coincidence Site Lattice (CSL) grain boundaries in the microstructure. In some alloys, these “special” 

grain boundaries have been reported to improve overall resistance to corrosion, oxidation, and creep 

resistance. Such improvements could be quite beneficial for superalloys, especially in conditions which 

encourage damage and cracking at grain boundaries. Therefore, the effects of GBE processing on hightemperature mechanical properties of the cast and wrought superalloy Allvac 718Plus (Allvac ATI) were 

screened. Bar sections were subjected to varied GBE processing, and then consistently heat treated, 

machined, and tested at 650 C. Creep, tensile stress relaxation, and dwell fatigue crack growth tests were 

performed. The influences of GBE processing on microstructure, mechanical properties, and associated 

failure modes are discussed. 

Introduction 

Cast and wrought superalloys were designed to have strength and creep resistance at moderately high 

temperatures extending up to 600 C, for many applications in propulsion, energy, and petrochemical 

industries. Strengthening precipitate content and refractory element levels have been carefully balanced to 

allow cold working, hot working, and joining, without cracking or other severe damage. Recently 

developed cast and wrought superalloys such as Allvac 718Plus (Allvac ATI) and Haynes 282 (Haynes 

International) have retained these capabilities, while extending mechanical property capabilities to over 

650 C (Refs. 1 and 2). However, as temperatures increase to this level, time-dependent failure modes 

including creep, dwell fatigue cracking at notches, and dwell fatigue crack growth can limit life in some 

applications, often due to intergranular cracking (Ref. 3). 

In the presence of dwells, fatigue cracks often initiate and grow at surface grain boundaries. This 

intergranular cracking is environment related, and therefore not easily suppressed unless the environment 

is changed (Refs. 4 and 5). However, grain size and associated grain boundary characteristics have been 

found to influence this intergranular crack growth rates in air (Refs. 6, 7, and 8). For materials of fixed 

grain size, the response can also be strongly influenced by heat treatments that vary the size and volume 

fraction of strengthening precipitates, thereby altering the balance of mechanical properties that control 

stresses at cracks (Refs. 9 and 10). Heat treatments using fast solution quenches and low temperature ages 

can produce refined secondary and tertiary   precipitate sizes that maximize strength and creep 

resistance, but allow high peak stresses at cracks to impair resistance to dwell fatigue crack growth. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 2 

Alternative heat treatments using slower solution quenches and higher temperature ages can produce 

larger secondary and tertiary   precipitate sizes that reduce strength and creep resistance, but give lower 

peak stresses at cracks to improve resistance to dwell fatigue crack growth. Alloys like 718Plus can be 

given heat treatments to promote the formation of coarse δ phase at the grain boundaries (10). This 

phase content comes at the expense of   precipitate phase content (Ref. 1) and therefore reduces strength 

and creep resistance, but can improve dwell crack growth resistance. In summary, the particular trade in 

tensile and creep strength versus dwell crack growth is common to many disk superalloys, and can limit 

disk designs. 

Low CSL grain boundaries have been reported to be more resistant to oxidation, corrosion, and creep 

in some superalloys (Refs. 11, 12, and 13). Therefore, increasing the fraction of such special grain 

boundaries (i.e., Fsp) in disk superalloys could influence the balances and trades of mechanical properties 

available, to potentially improve resistance to crack growth during fatigue with dwells. The objective of 

this study was to screen the influence of grain boundary engineering processing on the microstructure and 

high temperature mechanical properties of a disk superalloy, in search of an improved balance of dwell 

fatigue crack growth with other mechanical properties. Selected samples of 718Plus superalloy were 

given GBE treatments to increase the fraction of low CSL grain boundaries. Several heat treatments were 

also consistently applied, to vary grain size and precipitate size in samples with and without prior GBE 

processing. Specimens were then subjected to tensile stress relaxation, creep, and dwell fatigue crack 

growth tests. Properties and failure modes were then compared. 

Materials and Procedure 

Allvac 718Plus was obtained from ATI Allvac as a hot rolled, annealed bar of 3.5 cm diameter, 

having a composition of 1.46Al, 0.005B, 0.21C, 8.99Co, 0.01Cu, 17.79Cr, 9.53Fe, 2.69Mo, 0.05Mn, 

5.47Nb, 0.008P, 0.06Si, 0.0003S, 0.75Ti, 0.03V, 1.02W, bal. Ni (weight percent) and trace impurities. 

Grain boundary engineering was performed by repetitive cycles of cold rolling with short annealing heat 

treatments. The processing conditions of the six cases examined here are listed in Table 1. A full 

description of the GBE processing and resulting characteristics, including the “GI” and “GII” processes 

selected to produce preferred grain boundaries in this work, is in an accompanying paper in these 

proceedings (Ref. 14). Both NG and NGD cases had No GBE processing, but NGD had a Delta () phase 

heat treatment of 930 C/4 h/air cool. The GI case received the “GI” GBEI process. The GIP case 

received the “GI” process, then a Post solution cold rolling deformation reduction of less than 5 percent. 

The GIIP case followed a similar path, but received the alternative “GII” GBEII process and the Post 

solution cold rolling reduction. The GIPD case received the “GI” process, a Post solution cold-rolling 

deformation reduction of less than 5 percent, then the Delta () heat treatment. After GBE processing, all 

GBE and non-GBE processed blanks, which were 3 cm wide, 1.5 cm thick, and 5.1 cm long, were given 

an identical solution heat treatment above the estimated   solvus (Ref. 1) of 1025 C for 5 min., then 

cooled at a rate of 60 to 70 C/min to below 800 C. All blanks were finally given a final two-step aging 

heat treatment of 788 C/8 h+38C/min cool+649 C/8 h/air cool to age the   precipitates. For each 

selected material case, blanks of the same dimensions received the same final solution heat treatment, 

controlled quench rate, and final two-step aging heat treatment, to isolate effects of GBE processing and 

the δ heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties. 

Tensile stress relaxation, creep rupture, and dwell fatigue crack growth tests were performed at 

650 C. Tensile stress relaxation tests were performed on specimens having a gage diameter of 0.4 cm 

and gage length of 2 cm in a uniaxial test machine employing a resistance heating furnace and axial 

extensometer. The tests were performed in general accordance with the tensile testing standard ASTM 

E21, using an initial test segment with strain increased at a uniform rate of 0.5 percent/min. However, the 

tests were stopped at 1 percent strain and held for 100 h, to measure relaxation of stress as a function of 

time. The tensile tests were then continued to failure, at a uniform displacement rate of 1 mm/min. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 3 

Creep tests were performed on specimens of the same dimensions at Metcut Research Associates in 

general accordance with ASTM E139, using uniaxial lever arm constant load creep frames with resistance 

heating furnaces and gage-mounted extensometers. Tests at an applied stress of 690 MPa were interrupted 

after attaining at least 0.5 percent creep strain. The samples were measured to verify elongation, and later 

continued to rupture at NASA GRC using uniaxial lever arm constant load creep frames with resistance 

heating furnaces and displacement gages for monitoring creep strain. 

Fatigue crack growth specimens were machined with a rectangular gage section 1 cm wide and 

0.46 cm thick, having a surface flaw on one side of the gage section about 0.356 mm wide and 0.178 mm 

deep, produced by electro-discharge machining (Ref. 15). The fatigue crack growth specimens were 

tested at NASA GRC in general accordance with ASTM E647. Tests were performed in a closed-loop 

servo-hydraulic test machine using resistance heating, with potential drop measurement of crack growth. 

Pre-cracking was performed at room temperature, then tests were performed at 650 °C using a maximum 

stress of 621 MPa, stress ratio of 0.5, and dwell time of 90 s at maximum stress in each cycle. 

Fracture surfaces of representative specimens were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy 

(SEM). Cracking modes and grain sizes were also examined on metallographically-prepared sections for 

selected specimens. Grain sizes were determined on metallographically-prepared samples according to 

ASTM E112 using linear intercept grids on optical images. An EDAX Inc. electron back scatter 

orientation imaging system was used with TSL software in a field emission scanning electron microscope 

to determine grain orientation and grain boundary character, as described in Reference 14. Precipitate 

microstructures were also compared in thin foils using <100> /  dark field images in a FEI CM200 

transmission electron microscope (TEM). At least 150 precipitates were measured within grains for each 

material condition. 

Results and Discussion 

Material and Microstructures 

Typical grain microstructures from etched metallographic sections of tensile test specimens are 

shown in Figures 1 to 3. Grain sizes and grain boundary characteristics are summarized in Table 1 

(Ref. 14). The six 718Plus conditions had mean linear intercept grain sizes varying from 16 to 30 μm. The 

percentage of low CSL “special” grain boundaries (Fsp) increased from 35 percent for non-GBE 

conditions up to 69 percent for the GIIP condition. Twin density increased from 17 percent for non-GBE 

condition up to 56 percent for the GIIP condition. The enhancement of 3 (i.e., twin boundary) content is 

a key step in GBE, and has been previously observed in many other superalloys (Refs. 11, 13, 16, and 

17). Twin boundaries have a CSL of 3, and are therefore counted as low energy CSL boundaries in this 

accepted methodology and in the present results. 

Figure 1.—Optical images of samples given conventional 718Plus heat treatment. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 4 

Figure 2.—Optical images of samples given δ heat treatment. 

Figure 3.—Representative OIM images of the Allvac 718Plus Alloy in NG (No GBE), GI (GBE I) and GIIP (GBEII, 

post-solution deformation) conditions showing the increase in the special grain boundaries content following the 

applied GBE processing. The boundary segments are classified as follows: red lines denote low energy 3 grain 

boundaries, yellow denotes other low (i.e., 329) grain boundaries, thick black lines represent general high 

angle grain boundaries and thin black lines show the positions of the low angle grain boundaries (i.e., 1). 

TABLE 1.—A SUMMARY OF NOMENCLATURE, PROCESSING HISTORY AND 

FINAL MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS FOR THE SIX CASES 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 5 

Precipitate microstructures are compared in the TEM images of Figure 4. Mean secondary  

precipitate size moderately increased with GBE for conventionally aged materials, in going from the NG 

to GI and GIIP conditions. These samples were heat treated identically, so the precipitate size differences 

were related to GBE and post-solution deformation. Very fine   phase particles, shown in example 

insets, were observed attached to   precipitates for all cases. However, the size and extent of these  

particles appeared comparable among the different conditions. This has been observed in some cases for 

718 in the past (18). The  heat treated conditions (NGD and GIPD) had δ plates often extending from 

grain boundaries, and similar bimodal   precipitate size distributions for the NGD and GIPD cases, 

Figure 4(b). Here too, the fine   precipitate size was increased by GBE for the GIPD condition. 

Compared to NGD, the GIPD condition also had slightly higher δ phase content, with δ plates added 

within grains along preferred crystallographic planes. This was apparently due to preferential δ phase 

nucleation at slip bands after plastic deformation, as sometimes observed for 718 (Ref. 19). For all 

conditions,   precipitates were distributed uniformly within grains, and preferential coarsening or 

denuding of   precipitates at grain boundaries was not typically observed. 

Figure 4(a).—TEM images of cases with conventional 718Plus heat treatment. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 6 

Figure 4(b).—TEM images of cases with  heat treatment. 

Mechanical Response 

Tensile.—Typical tensile stress-strain and relaxed stress-time curves are shown in Figure 5, and 

tensile results are compared in Figure 6. GI samples, which were GBEI processed without the additional 

cold-rolling deformation step following the final solution treatment, had 9 percent lower mean yield 

strength than comparative NG samples without the processing. However, GIP and GIIP, which were GBE 

processed and also given post-solution deformation, had up to 9 percent increased mean yield strength. 

heat treated materials had lower yield strengths than for conventional heat treat conditions, and were less 

affected by GBE. GBE only increased mean yield strength for condition GIPD about 1 percent over its 

non-GBE equivalent, NGD. Ultimate strength is also compared for all cases in Figure 6.  heat treated 

materials consistently had lower mean ultimate strength than conventionally heat treated materials. Yet, 

mean ultimate strength was not strongly affected by GBE processing for any heat treatment condition. 

The  heat treatment gave increased ductility over the conventional heat treat condition. But GBE did not 

strongly affect ductility for any heat treatment condition. This indicated that deformation introduced 

during the cold rolling operations of GBE and sometimes after final solution heat treatments did not 

“consume” or decrease monotonic tensile ductility. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 7 

Figure 5.—Typical tensile stress-strain and stress relaxation curves. 

Figure 6.—Tensile strengths, ductilities, and relaxed stresses, with error bars indicating  one standard 

deviation. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 8 

Stresses relaxed nearly 300 MPa over 100 h of stress relaxation for both heat treat conditions in 

materials without GBE processing, NG and NGD, as shown in Figure 6. Equivalent samples given GBE 

with post-solution deformation (GIP and GIIP) allowed increased stress relaxation, so that in spite of their 

increased yield strength, final relaxed stress at 100 h was comparable. This resulted in final relaxed 

stresses near 700 MPa for conventional heat treat conditions, and near 600 MPa for  heat treat 

conditions. The largest relaxation in stress occurred for the GIP samples, 375 MPa. However, the GI 

samples having only baseline GBEI processing were unique, combining reduced yield strength with 

reduced stress relaxation of just 187 MPa. Final relaxed stress for this case matched those for the  heat 

treated condition, near 600 MPa. This was strikingly different from GIP samples, which had post-solution 

deformation after the same GBEI processing. 

Tensile fractures were dominated by conventional ductile shear near the specimen surface and 

microvoid coalescence in the center. However, one or more intergranular surface cracks also initiated 

along the surface, and influenced failures for most tensile specimens, Figure 7. Only the GIPD condition 

had no intergranular cracks on the fracture surface. 

Figure 7(a).—Typical tensile fracture surfaces, intergranular edge cracks, and central overload regions, for cases with 

conventional aging heat treatment. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 9 

Figure 7(b).—Typical tensile fracture surfaces, intergranular edge 

cracks, and central overload regions, for  heat treatment. 

Figure 8.—Typical creep curves for tests at 650 C/690 MPa. 

Creep.—Typical creep-time curves are shown in Figure 8, and creep results are compared in Figure 9. 

The  heat treatment gave greatly increased primary creep and reduced creep resistance over the 

conventional heat treat condition, reducing time to 0.5 percent creep by about 70 percent. GBE further 

increased primary creep extent and reduced creep times for both  and conventional heat treatment 

conditions. Unlike stress relaxation response, creep responses for GI and GIP conditions were 

comparable. Yet, mean rupture lives were similar for most conditions, and did not rank in this order. Only 

the GIPD condition had higher rupture mean life than all other conditions, in spite of its most rapid 

primary creep. The associated rupture ductilities are also compared in Figure 9. The NG condition had 

lowest and GIPD condition had highest mean ductilities of all conditions studied. Therefore, deformation 

introduced during the various cold rolling steps also did not appear to result in lower rupture ductility. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 10 

Figure 9.—Creep rupture lives and ductilities, with error bars indicating  one standard deviation. 

Microvoid coalescence again occurred in the specimen centers for creep rupture specimens. But 

larger intergranular surface cracks were observed for most conditions, Figure 10. These surface cracks 

were more oxidized than the center regions, indicating that the surface cracks were open longer and likely 

initiated failures. Again, the GIPD condition had no intergranular surface cracks on the fracture surface. 

Dwell fatigue crack growth: The varied material conditions significantly affected the dwell crack 

growth rate response producing a range of near 10x in crack growth rates, and also altered the crack 

growth slope for some of the GBE conditions, Figure 11. In addition to the GBE process, the  heat 

treatment in itself altered the crack growth rates by lowering them approximately 2x in comparison to the 

conventional non-GBE heat treat condition NG. GBEI processing with post-solution deformation further 

reduced dwell crack growth rates by at least 3x for the  heat treatment condition GIPD, especially at low 

stress intensities. However, results were mixed for conventional heat treat conditions. The GI condition 

had a slight reduction in dwell crack growth rate, yet the GIP condition having the same GBEI processing 

combined with post- solution deformation did not. The GIIP condition with the enhanced GBEII 

processing and post- solution deformation had dwell crack growth rates reduced by 3 to 10x, especially at 

low stress intensities. Overall, it appeared GBE could reduce dwell crack growth rates for both 

conventional and  heat treated materials. However, the response of conventionally heat treated materials 

appeared to be sensitive to the GBE processing history. 

The extent of intergranular cracking varied significantly among the material conditions, Figure 12, 

and was influenced by GBE as well as heat treatment. Among conventionally heat treated conditions, the 

NG condition with no GBE processing had nearly 100 percent intergranular cracking. The GI and GIP 

conditions appeared to have near 90 percent intergranular cracking, with scattered transgranular grain 

failures. A lower proportion of near 75 percent intergranular cracking was apparent for the GIIP 

condition, with transgranular grain failures more often observed.  heat treated conditions had less 

intergranular cracking. A near evenly mixed mode of 50 percent intergranular and 50 percent 

transgranular cracking was apparent for the NGD condition. Finally, the GIPD condition had 

approximately 75 percent transgranular and 25 percent intergranular cracking. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 11 

Figure 10(a).—Typical creep rupture fracture surfaces, intergranular edge cracks, and central 

overload regions, for cases with conventional heat treatment. 

Figure 10(b).—Typical creep rupture fracture surfaces, intergranular edge cracks, and central 

overload regions, for cases with  heat treatment. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 12 

Figure 11.—Typical 90s dwell fatigue crack growth rates 

versus maximum stress intensity at 650 C. 

Figure 12.—Typical dwell fatigue crack growth surfaces. 

Microstructure-Property Relationships 

For the material conditions examined, GBE increased the proportion of preferred grain boundaries 

and twins, and in some cases, corresponding grain sizes were also affected. GBE also influenced   and 

δ phase morphologies. All these changes need be considered in relating GBE processing to observed 

microstructures and mechanical properties. 

GBE-Microstructure.—The bimodal population of   precipitates observed for the NGD and GIPD 

cases can be explained by comparing the  heat treatment and   phase solvus temperatures. The  heat 

treatment temperature of 930 °C is below the estimated   phase solvus temperature of 1065 °C 

(Ref. 1), therefore a small fraction of the existing   precipitates would not dissolve, but instead coarsen 

appreciably during the  heat treatment. The dissolved   phase fraction would then re-precipitate and grow 

to finer sizes during the subsequent quench and aging heat treatments, giving the bimodal population. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 13 

Both conventional and  heat treated cases received the same final solution heat treatments above the 

  solvus, controlled quench rate, and final aging heat treatments. Yet, mean   size often increased for 

GBE processed materials in each case. This indicates GBE processing in some way affected subsequent 

precipitate nucleation, growth, and coarsening, perhaps driven by remnant cold work not fully annealed in 

the short 5 min solution treatments. Combining GBE with post-solution cold work apparently further 

enhanced these effects, evident in comparing the microstructures for GI and GIIP conditions, 

Figure 4. Curiously, the enhancement was not observed for the GIP condition. Further experimentation 

would be necessary to determine exactly how this enhancement varies and occurs. Additional δ phase also 

precipitated within grains due to GBE processing, observed for the GIPD condition. This is consistent 

with reported observations in studies of 718, which showed that δ phase preferentially nucleates at slip 

bands produced by plastic deformation (Ref. 19). 

Microstructure-Properties.—The relationships between microstructure and mechanical properties are 

separately considered in Figures 13 to 15. Mechanical properties are shown versus special grain boundary 

content in Figure 13. Stress relaxation significantly increased, while creep time and dwell fatigue crack 

growth rate significantly decreased with special grain boundary content. Properties are shown versus 

grain size in Figure 14. Dwell fatigue crack growth rate strongly correlated with grain size. Strength, 

relaxed stress, and creep time did not clearly correlate with only grain size. As indicated, post-solution 

deformation appeared to influence these properties, and could help explain the lack of clear grain size 

dependence here. Mechanical properties are shown as functions of fine   size in Figure 15. Stress 

relaxation significantly increased and dwell fatigue crack growth rate correspondingly decreased with fine 

  size. 

Figure 13.—Mechanical properties versus special grain boundary content. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 14 

Figure 14.—Mechanical properties versus linear intercept grain size. 

Figure 15.—Mechanical properties versus fine   size. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 15 

In the microstructure-property plots, conventional and  heat treated conditions were considered 

separately. The coarse plates of δ phase may not contribute substantially to strength or creep resistance 

(Ref. 1). Therefore, the lower strengths of  heat treated cases could be associated with the lower volume 

fractions and bimodal populations of   precipitates observed here, and indicate that these properties as 

measured in the present test conditions were largely influenced by the   precipitates through dislocation 

shearing and bypass mechanisms, respectively, rather than by grain boundary sliding. It is not clear what 

role was played by the very fine   phase particles often attached to   precipitates. However, the size of 

these particles did not seem to change among the different conditions, so their effects on mechanical 

properties could be similar for the six cases examined. 

The  heat treatment also produced lower dwell fatigue crack growth rates than for conventional heat 

treated material, accompanied by smaller proportions of intergranular cracking. The large reductions in 

relaxed stresses for  heat treated materials could help explain this response, as the increase in stress 

relaxation can result in a decrease in the corresponding crack tip crack driving force which in turn would 

lower the dwell crack growth rates. These results are in agreement with previously reported data showing 

that heat treatments which produce extensive stress relaxation led to lower dwell crack growth rates for 

718Plus (Ref. 20) and a powder metallurgy superalloy (Ref. 9). The presence of δ phase plates along 

many grain boundaries also may have influenced dwell crack growth rates by altering the intergranular 

damage and cracking process, to either improve (Ref. 20) or impair (Ref. 17) dwell crack growth 

resistance. Additional studies systematically varying δ phase content independently from mechanical 

properties would be necessary to fully separate and rank these influences on dwell fatigue crack growth 

rates. 

The addition of GBE with post-solution deformation for  heat treated material did not greatly affect 

strength and stress relaxation response, yet gave the lowest creep resistance and lowest dwell crack 

growth rates. So comparison of the NGD and GIPD cases can allow estimation of the effects of increased 

preferred grain boundary content on dwell crack growth, at nearly fixed strength and stress relaxation 

properties. This comparison indicates that preferred grain boundaries of the GIPD case gave a substantial 

benefit of near 5x to dwell crack growth rates, and reduced intergranular cracking. However, this case had 

slightly higher δ phase content and slightly larger mean size of fine   precipitates. These differences as 

well as larger average grain size for GIPD could also contribute to the crack growth improvements. 

Grain boundary engineering combined with post-solution deformation and conventional heat 

treatment enabled an increase in yield strength, combined with enhanced stress relaxation and primary 

creep. This allowed the GIIP condition to have a preferable combination of high yield strength, good 

creep resistance, and dwell crack growth resistance in the present study, as shown in Figure 16. This is an 

important and significant finding, since it leads to a favorable balance of high temperature mechanical 

properties, without the typical sacrifice in yield strength and creep resistance for improved dwell crack 

growth resistance. 

It does not appear that the increased percentage of preferred grain boundaries produced by GBE alone 

could have provided this yield strength improvement. If that were the case, the GI condition would also 

have shown increased rather than reduced yield strength. Rather, the post- solution deformation after GBE 

appeared to provide much of the increase in yield strength, evident for the GIP and GIIP cases. This postsolution deformation produced many slip bands as shown in Figure 17, which could provide initial 

dislocation hardening but also facilitate through time-dependent dislocation rearrangement enhanced 

stress relaxation that was observed for these material conditions. In this respect, GBE with post-solution 

deformation may effectively operate as conventional cold work, which was previously shown to enhance 

yield strength yet increase stress relaxation in 718 (Ref. 21) and in powder metallurgy superalloys 

Rene 95 (Ref. 22) and IN100 (Ref. 23). These slip bands were not observed for the GIPD case, where the 

 heat treatment of 930 C/4 h apparently annealed out this plastic deformation, while preferentially 

precipitating δ plates on the slip bands. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 16 

Figure 16.—Comparison of the trade in mechanical properties. 

Figure 17.—Effects of post-solution deformation on microstructure. 

The resulting dwell crack growth rates for conventional heat treated cases were sensitive to GBE 

processing. Application of GBEI processing before final solution heat treatment gave a modest reduction 

in dwell crack growth rates and intergranular cracking for the GI condition. Inclusion of a post-solution 

deformation step after this same GBEI processing eliminated this benefit for condition GIP. Yet, the 

enhanced GBEII process combined with post-solution deformation gave larger reductions in dwell crack 

growth rates and intergranular cracking, in the GIIP condition. The strengthening   precipitate size 

consistently increased with decreasing crack growth rate for these cases, however, a single correlation 

between dwell fatigue crack growth and   precipitate size did not appear to be governing for all cases, 

Figure 15. The additional effects of  heat treatments and post solution deformation can explain this lack 

of a single correlation as observed elsewhere (Ref. 9). 

Dwell fatigue crack growth is partly dependent on the connectivity of these high angle grain 

boundaries, and the “connectivity” of high angle boundaries was appreciably decreased by GBE 

(Ref. 14). But this was confounded by the effects of other changes in these microstructures which were 

previously described, and the associated changes in yield strength and stress relaxation that would affect 

both stresses and plastic/creep zone sizes at the crack tip. Yet, decreased connectivity of high angle grain 

boundaries in GBE materials probably contributed to the slower measured crack growth rates, reflected in 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 17 

the comparison of NGD and GIPD responses. Additional, interrupted dwell crack growth tests and 

subsequent metallographic sectioning would help to further investigate these concepts. 

In summary, these aspects suggest a generalized GBE microstructure-property framework and model 

to account for the results would require statistical evaluation of several terms: special grain boundary 

content (Fsp), grain size (D–1/2), fine   size (df) and content (ff).  phase size (d) and content (f), and 

slip band or dislocation density (). These terms could not be clearly evaluated with multiple linear 

regression for the six current conditions tested, due to confounded variations of several terms. One would 

need to systematically vary these terms in a matrix of statistically designed processing-microstructure 

cases, for proper evaluations. 

Potential Future Work 

Additional work could help to better understand and optimize microstructure-mechanical property 

relationships for grain boundary engineered materials. For the current material, additional, interrupted 

crack growth tests could allow better understanding of how dwell fatigue crack growth varied with 

material condition. Longitudinal sectioning could be used here to isolate crack paths, allow quantification 

of grain boundary character, connectivity, crystallographic orientation, and surrounding grain constraints 

necessary during fatigue crack growth. This could help allow identification of all influential 

microstructure variables. Additional material processing conditions could then be added, to systematically 

vary all relevant microstructure terms in a manner allowing unambiguous statistical evaluations. 

Predictive models relating GBE and post-solution deformation to microstructure and properties could then 

be generated. 

Such knowledge could be applied to help guide optimal balancing of properties through GBE using 

the current approaches, as well as through other thermo-mechanical and surface treatment processes. Disk 

forging, surface shot peening, or low plasticity burnishing (Ref. 21) could be applied in attempts to 

replicate these effects on microstructure for similar enhancement of properties. Altered heat treatments 

with varied solution and aging times, temperatures, and paths could be applied to potentially further 

improve the balance of properties. 

Summary and Conclusions 

The influences of grain boundary engineering on the microstructures and high temperature 

mechanical properties of a disk superalloy were screened. Selected samples of 718Plus superalloy were 

given grain boundary engineering (GBE) treatments to increase the fraction of low CSL grain boundaries. 

Conventional and  heat treatments were then consistently applied in samples with and without prior GBE 

processing. Mechanical properties were subsequently screened in tensile stress relaxation, creep, and 

dwell fatigue crack growth tests. 

GBE before final solution and aging heat treatments reduced yield strength and creep resistance, yet 

also reduced the extent of stress relaxation. Dwell fatigue crack growth rates were modestly improved for 

this case. The  heat treatment independently reduced yield strength and creep resistance, and increased 

stress relaxation over those properties for conventional heat treatment conditions. This gave moderately 

improved dwell crack growth rates. 

GBE combined with a final cold rolling deformation step after solution heat treatment produced an 

advantageous balance of increased yield strength and reduced creep resistance, with increased stress 

relaxation. This could also reduce dwell fatigue crack growth rates. However, dwell crack growth rates 

appeared sensitive to variation of GBE processing. Combination of the GBEI process with post-solution 

deformation and  heat treatment gave lowest dwell crack growth rates. This was correlated with a 

coarser, bimodal gamma prime size distribution promoted by the  heat treatment, the presence of  phase 

plates both within grains and at grain boundaries, and the increased twin and preferred grain boundary 

content promoted by GBE. This microstructure allowed the lowest proportion of intergranular cracking 

during dwell fatigue crack growth. 
NASA/TM—2010-216935 18 

It can be concluded from this work that: 

1. Allvac 718Plus microstructures and mechanical properties can be significantly influenced by grain 

boundary engineering. 

2. The addition of a deformation step after final solution heat treatment can be used to alter the effects of 

grain boundary engineering. 

3. These effects can be combined with a  heat treatment to enhance dwell crack growth resistance and 

minimize intergranular cracking. 

4. The combination of grain boundary engineering with post solution deformation and conventional 

aging can give a most favorable balance of strength, creep resistance, stress relaxation, and dwell 

fatigue crack growth resistance. 

References 

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Grain Boundaries,” Materials and Corrosion 56 (2005) 785–790. 
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12. E.M. Lehockey, G. Palumbo, P. Lin, A.M. Brennenstuhl, “On the Relationship Between Grain 

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Crack Propagation Behavior of a New Ni-base Superalloy,” Mat. Sci. Eng. 474 (2008), 30–38. 

21. P. Prevey, R.A. Ravindranath, M.J. Shepard, T.P. Gabb, “Case Studies of Fatigue Life Improvement 

Using Low Plasticity Burnishing in Gas Turbine Engine Applications,” Proceedings of ASME Turbo 

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22. T.P. Gabb, J. Telesman, P.T. Kantzos, P.J. Bonacuse, R.L. Barrie, and D.J. Hornbach, “Stress 

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The Metallurgical Society of AIME, 2008), 965–974. 
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Grain Boundary Engineering the Mechanical Properties of Allvac 718PlusTM Superalloy

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6. AUTHOR(S)

Gabb, Timothy, P.; Telesman, Jack; Garg, Anita; Lin, Peter; Provenzano, Virgil; Heard, 

Robert; Miller, Herbert, M. 

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14. ABSTRACT

Grain Boundary Engineering can enhance the population of structurally-ordered “low S” Coincidence Site Lattice (CSL) grain boundaries in 

the microstructure. In some alloys, these “special” grain boundaries have been reported to improve overall resistance to corrosion, oxidation, 

and creep resistance. Such improvements could be quite beneficial for superalloys, especially in conditions which encourage damage and 

cracking at grain boundaries. Therefore, the effects of GBE processing on high-temperature mechanical properties of the cast and wrought 

superalloy Allvac 718Plus (Allvac ATI) were screened. Bar sections were subjected to varied GBE processing, and then consistently heat 

treated, machined, and tested at 650 °C. Creep, tensile stress relaxation, and dwell fatigue crack growth tests were performed. The influences 

of GBE processing on microstructure, mechanical properties, and associated failure modes are discussed. 

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Gas turbine engines; Rotating disks; Heat resistant alloys 

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