Effect of Mo and Bi on Mechanical Properties of Zr-Fe-Cr Alloy at Room Temperature

To investigate the effects of Mo and Bi on mechanical properties of a Zr-Fe-Cr alloy at room temperature, seven Zr-Fe-Cr-Mo-Bi alloys with different compositions were designed. They were subjected to a series of rolling processes and heat treatments, and then sampled to measure mechanical properties by hardness and tensile test and to characterize microstructures by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron channel contrast (ECC) technique. Results indicated that among them two types of Zr-Fe-Cr-Mo-Bi alloys achieve the designed goals on mechanical properties and have the following advantages: (i) the hardness of the alloys, up to 334HV after annealing, is 40% higher than traditional Zr-4. (ii) The yield strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of the alloys are 526 MP a and 889 MP a after hot rolling and annealing, markedly higher than the traditional Zr alloy. (iii) Good plasticity of the new Zr-Fe-Cr-Mo-Bi alloy is obtained with about 40% elongation, which is greatly higher than the Zr-Fe-Cr-Mo alloy thanks to the addition of Bi offsetting the disadvantage of addition Mo. Furthermore, according to observations of the microstructure observation, the reasons of the effect of the Mo and Bi elements on the mechanical performance of Zr-Fe-Cr alloy were studied and discussed.