Grain refinement, hardening and metastable phase formation by high current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) treatment under heating and melting modes

High current pulsed electron beam is a recently developed technique for surface modification. The pulsed electron irradiation introduces concentrated energy depositions in the thin surface layer of the treated materials, giving rise to an extremely fast heating and subsequent rapid cooling of the surface together with the formation of dynamic stress waves. Improved surface properties (hardness, corrosion resistance) can be obtained under the 'melting' mode when the top surface is melted and rapidly solidified (107 K/s). In steels, this is essentially the result of nanostructures formed from the highly undercooled melt, melt surface purification, strain hardening induced by the thermal stress waves as well as metastable phase selections in the rapidly solidified melted layers. The use of the 'heating' mode is less conventional, combining effects of the heavy deformation and recrystallization/recovery mechanisms. A detailed analysis of a FeAl alloy demonstrates grain size refinement, hardening, solid-state enhanced diffusion and texture modification without modification of the surface geometry.