The Effect of Elastic Anisotropy on the Shape of a Liquid Precipitate in a Wear-Resistant Fe-Base Alloy(Fe-5Cr- lMo-2Cu-0.5P-3C)
When a commercial prealloyed Fe-powder(Fe-5Cr-lMo-2Cu-0.5P-3C) is liquid phase sintered at 116, liquid precipitates with various shapes form within solid grains during the initial stage of sintering. The shape of a liquid precipitate changes pith the increment of their size from sphere(with radius<0.3), a transient polyhedron with more than 7 faces(1~2 ), cuboid(3~5 ), and finally to sphere(>5 ). The shapes of liquid precipitates closely resemble the growth shapes predicted on the basis of solid-liquid interfacial energy and the coherency strain energy with anisotropic elastic constants in the diffusion zone around the precipitates.