Fe-aluminides have the potential to replace many types of stainless steels that are currently used in structural applications. Once commercialized, it is expected that they will be twice as strong as stainless steels with higher corrosion resistance at high temperatures, while their average production cost will be approximately 10% of that of stainless steels. Self-propagating, high-temperature Synthesis (SHS) has been used to produce intermetallic and ceramic compounds from reactions between elemental constituents. The driving force for the SHS is the high thermodynamic stability during the formation of the intermetallic compound. Therefore, the advantages of the SHS method include a higher purity of the products, low energy requirements and the relative simplicity of the process. In this work, a Fe-aluminide intermetallic compound was formed from high-purity elemental Fe and Al foils via a SHS reaction in a hot press. The formation of iron aluminides at the interface between the Fe and Al foil was observed to be controlled by the temperature, pressure and heating rate. Particularly, the heating rate plays the most important role in the formation of the intermetallic compound during the SHS reaction. According to a DSC analysis, a SHS reaction appeared at two different temperatures below and above the metaling point of Al. It was also observed that the SHS reaction temperatures increased as the heating rate increased. A fully dense, well-bonded intermetallic composite sheet with a thickness of 700 μm was formed by a heat treatment at 665˚C for 15 hours after a SHS reaction of alternatively layered 10 Fe and 9 Al foils. The phases and microstructures of the intermetallic composite sheets were confirmed by EPMA and XRD analyses.

Fabrication of matrix in-situ composite, reinforced by a FeAl phase, was studied by using the powder metallurgical processing route. Especially, in order to disperse the second phase more finely, we chose the mechanical alloying process. We investigated the microstructural and mechanical properties of the consolidated material. After consolidation by vacuum hot pressing, the compact showed almost full density and consisted of a matrix and FeAl second phase (average particle size was less than 1m). The compact showed HV746, which was higher than that of the arc melted monolithic material, HV603.

Nano sized FeAl intermetallic particles were successfully synthesized by plasma arc discharge pro-cess. The synthesized powders shouted core-shell structures with the particle size of 10-20 nm. The core was metallic FeAl and shell was composed of amorphous Because of the difference of Fe and Al vapor pressure during synthesis, the Al contents in the nanoparticles depended on the Al contents of master alloy.

FeAl 기지 복합재료는 hot-pressing에 의해서 성공적으로 제조할 수 있다. 이러한 FeAl 합금의 기계적 특성에 대한 연구는 많이 진행되었으나 플라즈마 질화에 의한 표면 경화특성에 관한 연구는 아직 미흡한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 hot-pressing으로 제조된 소결 복합재료의 미세구조와 플라즈마 질화처리시 표면경화의 관계를 분석하였다. FeAl을 기지로 하는 합금은 플라즈마 질화처리에 의해서 표면경도가 상승하는 경향을 보였고, 이러한 경향은 질화처리 시간이 증가할수록 더욱 뚜렷하였다(hv 100gf, 확산층 : 1100~1450kg/mm2, matrix : 330~360kg/mm2). FeAl 합금으로 플라즈마 질화처리에 의해서 매우 우수한 표면경화특성을 얻을 수 있었다. 확산층은 플라즈마 질화처리시간이 증가할수록 두꺼워졌으며, SiC(sub)p의 함유량이 증가함에 따라 확산층은 감소하였다.