Short-Range Ordering Kinetics in Deformed and Annealed Alloys

The thermal stability of materials is of essential importance for their application as structural materials. Thermally activated processes in materials usually run by atomic diffusion brought about by vacant lattice sights which, as generally accepted are generated and annihilated at dislocations. In an alloy differences in atomic interaction energies lead to certain correlation effects between the different kinds of atom (short-range order, SRO), which is a common, temperature dependent property of alloys. During a thermal annealing process subsequent to a plastic deformation of an alloy (post-deformation annealing) process of defect recovery and recrystallization occur simultaneously with changes in the defree of SRO. The present study covers two general aspects: i) Information about post-deformation annealing and ii) Study of SRO-kinetics for different states of post-deformation annealing, both investigations done as a comparison of two certain alloy systems, differing significantly in stacking fault energy. A main question, which should be answered is the degree of SRO in the as deformed state. It is thought that stacking fault energy is a parameter influencing the production of point defects during deformation, this way possibly influencing the initial state of SRO after deformation. The production and annealing behavior of vacancies shall be studied for various states of annealing after deformation.