Influence of alloy element partitioning on strength of primary α phase in Ti-6Al-4V alloy

The partitioning effect of Al（α-phase stabilizer） and V elements（β-phase stabilizer） on strength of the primary α phases in the α/β Ti-6 Al-4 V alloy with the bimodal microstructure was investigated.It was found that partitioning of Al and V elements took place in the Ti-6 Al-4 V alloy during the recrystallization process,leading to the variation of the content of Al and V elements in the primary α phases with changing the volume fraction of the primary α phase.Nanoindentation tests reveal a general trend that the strength of the primary α phases increases with decreasing the volume fraction of the primary α phases,and such trend is independent on the loading direction relative to the c-axis of the α phase.The enhanced strength is attributed to the increase of the content of Al element in the primary α phase,but it is not dominated evidently by the change of the V content.The solid solution strengthening contributed from both the elastic strain introduced by the solute atoms and the variation of the density of states was estimated theoretically.

Effects of heating rate on the alloy element partitioning and mechanical properties in equiaxedα+βTi-6Al-4V alloy

The effects of heating rate on the alloy element partitioning and mechanical properties during the phase transformation ofα→βin Ti-6Al-4 V alloy under solution treatment have been investigated by the experiments and phase field simulations,which reveal the evolutions of microstructure and compositions at the non-equilibrium state and well verify the experimental results.The specific results indicate that the compositions measured through electron probe micro-analysis(EPMA)under a lower heating rate are close to the equilibrium ones corresponding to the solution temperature.Heating up to the target solution temperature,as the heating rate increases,the Al content decreases and V increases in the primaryα(α_(p))grain with a larger size,the volume fraction ofα_(p)increases and the composition gradient betweenα_(p)andβphases gets steeper.The interrelated relationship among the diffusion,compositions,solution temperature and free energy of the system has been discussed in detail.Moreover,increasing the heating rate(~20.0 K/min)may help to improve the mechanical properties of the alloy by mainly adjusting theα_(p)/β;volume fractions,α_(p)particle size and secondaryα(α_(p))size during the process of heating up to the solution temperature.These results may shed some light on the optimization of the knowledge-based heat treatment route.