Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 1992
Alloys based on the ordered intermetallic Nb3Al were fabricated by powder metallurgy processing, infiltration processing and clad-chip extrusion processing. By controlling processing variables, single phase Nb3Al and two phase Nb3Al-Nb solid solution alloys were obtained with various microstructures. The single phase Nb3Al deforms by {001 }<100> slip above 1400K and stress-strain curves exhibit deformation softening after showing a high peak stress. Transmission electron microscopic observations revealed that dislocations are dissociated into two partial dislocations which bound a stacking fault and the dissociation width between the partial dislocations depends on aluminum content in Nb3Al. The deformation softening was found to be caused by dynamic recrystallization. The two phase alloy shows similar stress-strain curves to the single phase alloys. However, sub-boundaries and dislocation networks were observed without recrystallized grains.