Three-dimensional α colony characterization and prior-β grain reconstruction of a lamellar Ti–6Al–4V specimen using near-field high-energy X-ray diffraction microscopy

Abstract

Near-field high-energy X-ray diffraction microscopy has been used to characterize the three-dimensional (3-D) crystallographic orientation field of the hexagonal close-packed α phase in a bulk Ti–6Al–4V specimen with a lamellar (β-annealed) microstructure. These data have been segmented using a 3-D misorientation-based grain finding algorithm, providing unprecedented information about the complex 3-D morphologies and spatial misorientation distributions of the transformed α lamella colonies. A 3-D Burgers orientation relationship-based flood-fill algorithm has been implemented to reconstruct the morphologies and crystallographic orientations of the high-temperature body-centered cubic prior-β grains. The combination of these data has been used to gain an understanding of the role of the prior-β grain structure in the formation of specific morphologies and spatial misorientation distributions observed in the transformed α colony structures. It is hoped that this understanding can be used to develop transformation structures optimized for specific applications and to produce more physically realistic synthetic microstructures for use in simulations.