1. Introduction
Scale growth on the surface of a metal or alloy is often accompanied by secondary processes that limit the kinetics of the process. Scale can partially sublimate, it is also possible to change the reaction surface for the growth of the main oxide. These processes - separately or together - lead to a significant change the form of equations used to describe the kinetics of the interaction of active gases with the surface of solids.
In the absence of secondary processes, the kinetics of scale growth on the surface of a metal or alloy is parabolic. In some cases, subparabolic, cubic and quaternary processes are also realized. In general: m
n=k
nt or (in differential form)
where m is a specific mass gain of oxidized object over time t (mass change due to reacted oxigen), kn is the reaction constant, n = 2, 3, 4 and can also take fractional values.
From Eq.(1) it follows an infinite initial value dm/dt=∞ (at the origin: t=0, m=0). To eliminate this infinity, instead of a simple parabolic equation, a “complex” equation (m/kr)+(m2/kp)=t qan be used, where kr is rectilinear constant (dm/dt at the origin). In this case we will have:
In particular, for parabilic kinetic:
Chromium-based alloys (alumina and chromium-forming alloys) are materials for coating hot parts of gas turbine and jet engines, solar power plants, etc. These alloys have been studied both earlier [
1,
2] and recently [
3,
4]. During the oxidation of these alloys, Al
2O
3 or Cr
2O
3 scale is formed on their surface. To improve the adhesion of the scale, doping of the alloy with rare earth metals (REM: La, Y, Ce etc.) is used [
5,
6,
7,
8], as for other alloys [
9,
10,
11,
12,
13].
In this case, fine particles of perovskites are formed - compounds of the RMO
3 type, where R is a rare earth element, and M is one of the two (three) main components of the alloy. The boundaries of oxide grains (the main arteries of mass transfer) in it are blocked by diffusion barriers made of chromites (LaCrO
3, YCrO
3, CeCrO
3). Having close-packed sublattices, these particles are barriers to cation diffusion. This leads to a significant change in the oxidation kinetics (in contrast to the usual parabolic). U.R. Evans [
14] defined reduction of surface (S) as:
or (in integral form):
where k is a constant of reduction of the reaction area, and S
0 is the initial size. Taking into account that in the absence of a change in the effective area (k=0), the scale growth occurs according to the parabolic law
k
p - parabolic constant, t - time). From Eqs(3-6):
The solution to Eq.(7) is the implicit expression (boundary conditions t=0, m=0):
By using of ‘’complex’’ parabola we will have:
and
It can be seen that for kr→∞ Eq.(9) goes over to Eq.(8).
By combining of Eq.(5) with Eqs (8) and (10) we can write:
where
= S/S
0.
The above equations are used in subsequent sections to describe the kinetics of high-temperature oxidation in air of FeCr and FeCrAl alloys doped with La.
The results obtained in [
15,
16,
17] are combined in this paper. The following experimental data for FeCrAl differ from [
17], since the experiment was carried out at a different temperature.
Conclusions
The study of the oxidation processes of alloys FeAlCr(La) and FeCr(La) in air at 1300℃ shows the deviation of the oxidation kinetics from parabolic.This is due to the presence of diffusion barriers from chromite LaCrO3 in the scale. This leads to a decrease of the reaction surface for the formation of the basic oxide (Al2O3 or Cr2O3). When oxidizing a chromia-forming alloy, another secondary process is added - evaporation of Cr2O3. Therefore, the equations describing the kinetics of changes in mass of the alloys under study are different.
Equations are considered that make it possible to describe the kinetics of the process taking into account the initial non-isothermal heating. The oxidation process of FeCr(Y) alloy is presented for demonstration.
Formal equations for processes with an increase in the reaction surface are also considered.