FeAl alloys with 40 to 50 at % Al have an impressive combination of oxidation and sulfidation resistance, low density, and low cost and are thus considered as possible substitutes for stainless steels. However, before these materials can be used in structural applications, the fracture characteristics of the alloy's grain boundaries need to be improved. Small additions of carbon and boron have been considered and the resulting properties have been reported. Boron is found to prevent intergranular fracture in iron-rich alloys and to mitigate environmental embrittlement although the improvement is not as dramatic as is seen with Ni3Al alloyed with boron. Boron segregates to the grain boundaries in Fe-Al alloys and boride precipitates at the boundaries and within the grains have been observed.
In this paper, we report the composition and atomic arrangement in a recently discovered phase (designated v phase) found in Fe-Al alloys containing small boron additions using a combination of Z-contrast imaging and electron energy-loss spectroscopy.