Taguchi Design for Heat Treatment of Rene 65 Components

Rene 65 is a nickel-based superalloy used in aerospace components such as turbine blades and disks. The microstructure in the as-received condition of the superalloy consists of about 40% volume fraction of gamma prime precipitates, which is so strong that thermomechanical processing is problematic. The aim of this work is to find a heat treatment to reduce hardness for manufacturing purposes without changing grain size in the final application. For the design of the heat treatments, Taguchi’s L8 matrix is used and the factors that are examined include cooling rate, hold temperature, hold time, and cooling method to room temperature.