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Alloys-by-design is a term used to describe new alloy development techniques based on numerical simulation. These approaches are extensively used for nickel-base superalloys to increase the chance of success in alloy development. During alloy production of numerically optimized compositions, unavoidable scattering of the element concentrations occurs. In the present paper, we investigate the effect of this scatter on the alloy properties. In particular, we describe routes to identify alloy compositions by numerical simulations that are more robust than other compositions. In our previously developed alloy development program package MultOpt, we introduced a sensitivity parameter that represents the influence of alloying variations on the final alloy properties in the post-optimization process, because the established sensitivity calculations require high computational effort. In this work, we derive a regression-based model for calculating the sensitivity that only requires one-time calculation of the regression coefficients. The model can be applied to any function with nearly linear behavior within the uncertainty range. The model is then successfully applied to the computational alloys-by-design work flow to facilitate alloy selection using the sensitivity of a composition owing to the inaccuracies in the manufacturing process as an additional minimization goal.

The present work shows that thermal expansion experiments can be used to measure the γʼ-solvus temperatures of four Ni-base single-crystal superalloys (SX), one with Re and three Re-free variants. In the case of CMSX-4, experimental results are in good agreement with numerical thermodynamic results obtained using ThermoCalc. For three experimental Re-free alloys, the experimental and calculated results are close. Transmission electron microscopy shows that the chemical compositions of the γ- and the γʼ-phases can be reasonably well predicted. We also use resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) to show how elastic coefficients depend on chemical composition and temperature. The results are discussed in the light of previous results reported in the literature. Areas in need of further work are highlighted. Graphical abstract

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