Mechanical Properties of Fe-Modifie Ll2-Type Al3Ti

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe room temperature ductility of an L12-type A13Ti alloy containing 7.5 at.% Fe has been improved substantially by hot isostatic pressing (HIP) after arc casting. This L12-type alloy can be deformed in compression to 11.4 % at room temperature after HIPing, retaining the original shape of compressive specimens, while compressive specimens without HIPing following heat-treatment for homogenization (HHT) fracture into small pieces when deformed to similar strain. At temperatures higher than 400°C, specimens for both HHTed and HIPed conditions show similar behavior, having strains to failure of greater than 12 % plastic strain. Fracture occurs at room temperature by brittle transgranular cleavage with a smooth surface in HHTed specimens, while in HIPed specimens, fracture occurs by both transgranular and intergranular modes. Transgranularly fractured surfaces in the latter case have rough surfaces with fine structure, indicating ductile fracture as compared with that for HHTed specimens. In both HIPed and HHTed specimens, no fracture surfaces are flat and parallel to any crystallographic planes. High resolution electron microscopy has revealed that a pair of superlattice partial dislocations on a (111) plane have a spacing of approximately 11 nm (2–3 times larger than that for Al-23Ti-6Fe-5V) giving an antiphase boundary energy of 95 mJ/m2. Since this energy is relatively low, the present alloy may be ductile because of its ready emission of dislocations at crack tips, according to the Rice-Thomson criterion. Improvement of room-temperature ductility of this alloy is attributed primarily to the reduction of a large population of cavities formed upon arc casting.