An ultrastrong niobium alloy enabled by refractory carbide and eutectic structure
Yi Zhang, Qinqin Wei, Pan Xie, Xiandong Xu
Abstract
Nb alloys with high strength and relatively low density are sought for high-temperature applications. However, due to strain softening, conventional Nb alloys often exhibit insufficient high-temperature strengths. Here we report a strategy to design a novel lightweight and thermally-stable Nb alloy by combining the notion of eutectics and refractory carbide. The resulting Nb2MoWC0.96 eutectic alloy exhibits a high-temperature specific compressive strength of 77.2 MPa/·cm3·g1 at 1673 K with a retained engineering plasticity of 37.5%, both are notably higher than the existing Nb and Nb-containing alloys. This work demonstrates that both the strength and plasticity of Nb alloys can be further optimized with refractory carbide and eutectics.