Effect of Rhenium Addition on Microstructures and Mechanical Properties of Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Ferrtic Steels

In this study, to investigate effects of rhenium addition on the microstructures and mechanical properties, 15Cr-1Mo ODS ferritic steels with rhenium additions were fabricated by the mechanical alloying, hot isostatic pressing, and hot rolling processes. Unremarkable differences on grain morphologies and nano-oxide distributions were estimated in the microstructure observations. However, the ODS ferritic steels with 0.5 wt.% rhenium showed higher tensile and creep strengths at elevated temperature than that without rhenium. It was found that rhenium is very effective to improve the mechanical properties.