I am a graduate student at Penn State University working on a cavitation resistance project via cryo-treating a Nickel-Aluminum-Bronze impeller. I have looked high and low for articles that can lead me in the right direction to further understand what is happening in the material due to the cryo-treatment, but all that I’ve been able to find information on is about steel and tool steels. I was wondering if you could offer me any input or direct me towards a source (book, journal, anything) that may help me. The NAB alloy is treated to -300F by cooling and raising the temperature 1 degree per minute. I have seen a difference in mass loss of 33% for cryo-treated versus baseline in cavitation tests, so something is happening.
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Sam Lingo, U.S. Cryogenics, LLC
August 1, 2008My search yielded similar results to yours in that there’s just not a whole lot out there on the effects of cryogenic processing on NAB alloys.
The most relevant article that we have is authored by two people from the Maintenance Reliability Group (Brogue, PA), Richard Wurzbach and Bill DeFelice. Their report is titled “Improving Component Wear Performance Through Cryogenic Treatment.” The complete report can be found here: http://fountainheadcryo.com/Portals/16/le2004_wurzbach.pdf.