Microstructure evolution of isothermal holding treatment during melt solidification of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Effect of isothermal holding treatment in the solidification process on the microstructure of Ti-6Al-4V alloy was studied by temperature controlled induced melting apparatus. The result shows that with isothermal holding treatment above the β transus temperature during solidification, the colony structure consisting of parallel lamellae was obtained. While the isothermal holding treatment was set at 960 °C, a unique bi-modal microstructure consisting of coarse primary α and fine secondary lamellar α was obtained. The primary lamellar α tended to break into several pieces, globularize and present equiaxed morphology. The formation mechanism of the equiaxed α can be explained with the atom immigration, high density dislocations, combined action with the interface tension of formed α phase during the isothermal holding treatment. After the isothermal holding, the retained β matrix transformed into fine lamellar α, thus, bi-modal microstructure was acquired. Compared with the lamellar structure, the grain boundary α presented discontinuously and cannot be distinguished from the primary α lamellae easily. The size of colonies α was greatly decreased. The microstructure tended to be much more homogeneous in the whole section of the samples.

Grain refinement of AZ91D alloy by intensive melt shearing and its persistence after remelting and isothermal holding

Intensive melt shearing has a significant grain refining effect on some light alloys.However,the persistence of the grain refining effect during isothermal holding and remelting is still unclear,although it is very important for the practical application.In this study,intensive melt shearing was achieved in a twin-screw mechanism to investigate its grain refining effect on AZ91D magnesium alloy.The refinement mechanism was discussed and the persistence of grain refinement after remelting and isothermal holding was also studied.A Zeiss imaging system with polarized light was used for quantitative measurement of grain size.The results show that the intensive melt shearing has a significant grain refining effect on AZ91D magnesium alloy.With the application of intensive melt shearing,the grain size of AZ91D magnesium alloy can be reduced from 530 μm(for a typical as-cast microstructure) to 170 μm,which is about 70% size reduction.The grain refinement achieved by the intensive melt shearing can be partially kept after isothermal holding and remelting.It is believed that the refinement effect was mainly due to the finer and well dispersed oxide particles formed by high intensive shearing.The smaller size of oxide particles and their slow motion velocity in the sheared melt could make important contributions to the remained grain refinement.

Effect of Cr and isothermal holding temperature on microstructure and properties of complex phase steel with high formability(CH steel)

The effects of Cr contents(0.3 and 1.0 wt.%)and isothermal holding temperatures(400,440,and 480℃)on the microstructure evolution and properties of complex phase steel with high formability(CH steel)were investigated using dilatometry,scanning electron microscopy,transmission electron microscopy(TEM),and X-ray diffraction.The results show that the microstructures of CH steel with 0.3 wt.%Cr are ferrite,granular bainite,martensite,and retained austenite,while no ferrite is observed in the microstructure of CH steel with 1.0 wt.%Cr in the same process.Cr promotes the precipitation of(Nb,Ti)C in the high-temperature austenite region through theoretical calculations and TEM observations.Cr retards the bainite transformation and refines the grain size of CH steel.Furthermore,as isothermal holding temperature increases from 400 to 480℃,the bainite and retained austenite fractions of two CH steels decrease,while the martensite fraction increases in the steels after final quenching.Consequently,the strength has an increasing tendency and the total elongation has a decreasing tendency with increasing isothermal temperature.

Effect of Isothermal Annealing on Nano Ti-Carbides Precipitation

Transmission electron microscopy was used to investigate the effect of isothermal holding temperature and time on the nano Ti-precipitates.A holding temperature was varied systematically from 400℃ to 1200℃.The isothermal holding was continued for 30s,300s and 900s,respectively.Nano carbides of (Ti,Nb)C were precipitated significantly at 900℃.The size of carbides was approximately 10nm at 30s holding and increased to 20～30nm at 900s holding.Isothermal holding at 1000℃ showed the increased amount of carbides larger than 100nm.At 800℃,nano (Ti,Nb)C was not observed at 30s and it was examined at 300s.The size of nano (Ti,Nb)C was smaller than that of 900℃.As the isothermal temperature decreased to 700 ℃,the nano (Ti,Nb)C was only seen at 900s holding and the size of carbides was smaller than 10nm.Nano (Ti,Nb)C was disappeared at isothermal holding below 600℃.The kinetics of nano (Ti,Nb)C precipitation were studied as a function of isothermal holding temperature and time,respectively,using the precipitate growth equations.

Effects of TMCP Schedule on Precipitation,Microstructure and Properties of Ti-microalloyed High Strength Steel

Using the similar compositions of the Ti-microalloyed high-strength steels produced by the thin-slab casting process of compact strip production（CSP）,four thermo-mechanical control processes（TMCP）after the simulated thickslab casting,i.e.the two hot rolling routes and the two cooling processes,were designed,aiming at achieving the same mechanical properties as the thin strip products.The final microstructures after the four TMCP processes were examined by optical microscope（OM）,scanning electron microscope（SEM）and transmission electron microscope（TEM）.The tensile properties and Charpy impact energy were measured correspondingly.Strain-induced TiC precipitation was found in the two-stage rolling route with the finish rolling temperature at low levels,leading to grain refinement due to the pinning effect during austenite recrystallization.Precipitation hardening in ferrite was observed when a period of isothermal holding was applied after hot rolling.It could be concluded that both finish rolling temperature and the subsequent isothermal holding temperature were crucial for the achieved strength level due to the combined effect of grain refinement and precipitation hardening.At the same time,it was found that the isothermal holding led to poor impact toughness because of remarkable precipitation hardening.Therefore,it was suggested that the precipitation kinetics of titanium carbides in both austenite and ferrite should be investigated in future.