Investigations into the influence of the tup velocity and the heat treatment on the dynamic fracture toughness of Inconel 625

Experiments were performed with an instrumented impact machine using different drop heights, on the nickel base alloy Inconel 625 in the as received state and after heat treatment for about 1000 h at 923 K. The absorbed impact energy can be obtained either by the direct dial reading, by the integration of the load versus load point displacement diagram or by the integration of the load versus time diagram, knowing the initial impact velocity of the tup. In all cases the agreement was excellent. It is shown that, (i) the dynamic fracture toughness is dependent on the tup velocity and as a consequence on the total energy of the hammer at the different drop heights; (ii) the embrittlement during heat treatment is not combined with a decrease in the fracture toughness although a strong decrease in the absorbed impact energy is observed; (iii) defining a dynamic stress from the velocity dependence of the fracture toughness, the stress is higher for the embrittled material - a tendency verified by tensile tests; (iv) the dynamic fracture toughness can be correlated with the absorbed impact energy up to the load maximum for the heat treated material while the as received material exhibits no such dependency. The change in the tup velocity during the impact process is only small for this type of material. (Auth.)