Effect of Intermediate Heat Treatment Temperature on Microstructure and Notch Sensitivity of Laser Solid Formed Inconel 718 Superalloy

Inconel 718 superalloys deposited by laser solid forming （LSF） were heat treated with solution treatment,intermediate heat treatment （IHT） and two-stage aging treatment in sequence （SITA heat treatment）.The effect of IHT temperature on microstructure,tensile property and notch sensitivity of LSFed Inconel 718 superalloy at 500 ℃ were investigated.As-deposited columnar grains have transformed to equiaxed grains and the grains were refined due to the recrystallization during the SITA heat treatment.It is found that the size and amount of δ phase dispersed at grain boundaries decreased with the increasing of IHT temperature,and δ phase disappeared when the IHT temperature reached 1 020 ℃.The ultimate tensile strength （UTS） and yield strength （YS） of smooth samples increased to a maximum when the IHT temperature reached 980 ℃ and then decreased slightly to a minimum when the IHT temperature was 1 000 ℃,and followed by slight increasing again till the IHT temperature reached 1 020 ℃,resulted from the competition of precipitation strengthening effect of γ″ and γ＇ phase and the grain boundary weakening effect caused by the gradual disappearance of δ phase with increasing the IHT temperature.The notch sensitivity factor （qe） decreased but still greater than 1 as the IHT temperature increased,which is attributed to the decrease of the size and amount of δ precipitation.

Weak fatigue notch sensitivity in a biomedical titanium alloy exhibiting nonlinear elasticity

It is well known that metallic materials exhibit worse fatigue damage tolerance as they behave stronger in strength and softer in modulus. This raises concern on the long term safety of the recently developed biomechanical compatible titanium alloys with high strength and low modulus. Here we demonstrate via a model alloy, Ti-24 Nb-4 Zr-8 Sn in weight percent, that this group of multifunctional titanium alloys possessing nonlinear elastic deformation behavior is tolerant in fatigue notch damage. The results reveal that the alloy has a high strength-to-modulus（σ/E） ratio reaching2% but its fatigue notch sensitivity（q） is low, which decreases linearly from 0.45 to 0.25 as stress concentration factor increases from 2 to 4. This exceeds significantly the typical relationship between σ/E and q of other metallic materials exhibiting linear elasticity. Furthermore, fatigue damage is characterized by an extremely deflected mountain-shape fracture surface, resulting in much longer and more tortuous crack growth path as compared to these linear elastic materials. The above phenomena can be explained by the nonlinear elasticity and its induced stress relief at the notch root in an adaptive manner of higher stress stronger relief. This finding provides a new strategy to balance high strength and good damage tolerance property of metallic materials.

Fatigue properties of a medium-strength γ-TiAl alloy with different surface conditions

Effects of surface condition on fatigue properties of a medium-strength γ-TiAl alloy Ti-45Al-5Nb-lW（at%） were investigated.It is found that the maximum stresses of fatigue samples are lower than the yield stresses of the medium-strength γ-TiAl alloy.Meanwhile,the local plastic deformation is unconspicuous to occur at the crack tip.In this case,the fatigue strength is mainly decided by surface conditions of maximum-stressed surface,but compressive stress and deformation especially resulted from shot peening play an important role in the improvement of the condition fatigue strength.The affecting depth of shot peening is about 250 μm.As a result,the relatively weak microstructures and phases become the preferential initiation sites and propagation routes.They are observed to be equiaxed γ grains,B2 ＋ ω grains,and α_2-γ lamellar interface in soft orientations.The existence of V-notch can significantly reduce the fatigue properties of the samples.