Many steels contain substitutional solutes which have a strong affinity for carbon or nitrogen. Such steels can be hardened by heat treatment which induces the precipitation of fine alloy carbides. Examples of such carbides include MX, 2 73 , 6 and 236 , where M stands for a mixture of iron and substitutional solute atoms and X stands for interstitial solute atoms. In practice, the heat treatme...

The influence of precipitation of intermetallics on changes in Young’s modulus of nickel and zirconium base alloys has been discussed in this paper. This study indicates that the change in the modulus due to thermal ageing in these alloys is essentially governed by the change in the modulus of the matrix due to removal of precipitation forming elements. 1.0 Introduction Mechanical properties in...