Effect of structure and phase composition on the physical and mechanical properties of hot extruded titanium alloy Ti–3Al–2.5V tubes

Abstract

This study investigates the impact the hot extrusion process variables on the physical and mechanical properties of Ti–3Al–V alloy The research examines four tube segments extracted from various hot-extruded tubes of Ti–3Al–2.5V alloy, with an outer diameter (OD) of 90 mm and a wall thickness of 20 mm. The manufacturing process involves expanding sleeves with a horizontal hydraulic press to achieve an OD of 195 mm, followed by heating to 850–865 °C prior to extrusion. The tube segments are labeled as 1, 2, 3, and 4, corresponding to their order of production. Our findings demonstrate that an increase in the number of extrusions in the α + β area from tube 1 to tube 4 leads to a reduction in the primary α-phase volume fraction and an increase in the β-transformed structure volume fraction. These changes are attributed to the higher final extrusion temperature resulting from more intense deformation heating during hot tooling (die and mandrel) processes. Additionally, elevating the final extrusion temperature from tube 1 to tube 4 leads to a notable decrease in the residual β-solid solution volume fraction and a reduction in the “sharpness” of the α-phase tangent-oriented texture. The alterations in the structural and phase state of the alloy from tube 1 to tube 4 are found to influence the contact modulus of elasticity and microhardness. These identified relationships can be utilized to optimize the process variables for the extrusion of multiple Ti–3Al–2.5V alloy tubes.