Characterization of Microstructural Evolution for a Near-α Titanium Alloy with Different Initial Lamellar Microstructures

Abstract

The effects of initial lamellar thickness on microstructural evolution and deformation behaviors of a near-α Ti-5.4Al-3.7Sn-3.3Zr-0.5Mo-0.4Si alloy were investigated during isothermal compression in α + β phase field. Special attention was paid to microstructural conversion mechanisms for α lamellae with different initial thicknesses. The deformation behaviors, including flow stress, temperature sensitivity, and strain rate sensitivity, and processing maps and their dependence on initial lamellar thickness were discussed. The detailed microstructural characterizations in different domains of the developed processing maps were analyzed. The results showed that the peak efficiency of power dissipation decreased with increasing initial lamellar thickness. The interaction effects with different extents of globularization, elongating, kinking, and phase transformation of lamellar α accounted for the variation in power dissipation. The flow instability region appeared to expand more widely for thicker initial lamellar microstructures during high strain rate deformation due to flow localization and local lamellae kinking. The electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analyses revealed that the collaborative mechanism of continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) promoted the rapid globularization behavior for the thinnest acicular initial microstructure, whereas in case of the initial thick lamellar microstructure, CDRX leading to the fragmentation of lamellae was the dominant mechanism throughout the deformation process.