The precipitation of NbC on dislocations in austenite

Abstract. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) was used to study the kinetics of NbC precipitation in an austenitic alloy containing 69.2% Ni, 29.7% Fe, 0.851% Nb and 0.114% C (mass percent). The kinetics were measured at 700 °C for a non-deformed sample as well as samples deformed by 10, 20 and 30%. The effect of deformation is to increase the rate of precipitation and to reduce the precipitate particle size. The use of SANS appears to provide reliable information on the precipitate volume fraction as well as on the average particle size.