Vickers Hardness and Positron Annihilation Study of Eurofer97 and ODS Eurofer

This paper describes investigations of Eurofer97 and oxide dispersion strengthened version of this steel, in as received state and after annealing. Vickers hardness test was performed on the as received specimens and after annealing at various temperatures to obtain information about development of the strength of studied materials. After identifying the temperature region where significant changes of the strength take place we applied positron annihilation spectroscopy to probe the microstructural changes in ferritic/martensitic steels. An observation of phase transformation was observed in both steels at various temperatures indicating different behaviour of the base material and its strengthened version. All applied methods proved the importance of strengthening by oxides to improve properties of steels.