A 0.7 mm-thick wavy γ-TiAl sheet with fully lamellar microstructure was fabricated by hot pressing Ti/Al alternate foils with heat treatment of 640 °C, 15 h＋850 °C, 35 h＋1350 °C, 2 h. The intermetallic compounds formed during heat treatments were identified by scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and X-ray diffraction （XRD）. TiAl3 was the only observed phase at the Ti/Al interface when Al foils were not consumed. After being annealed at 850 °C for 35 h, the microstructure was composed of α-Ti, α2-Ti3Al, γ-TiAl and TiAl2. A fully lamellar microstructure formed after annealing at 1350 °C. Most of the angles between the lamellar interface and the sheet plane are below 30°. Using thinner starting foils is favorable to produce sheets with fine microstructure.
LIU Jiang-pingSU Yan-qingLUO Liang-shunCHEN HuiXU Yan-jinGUO Jing-jieFU Heng-zhi
Effect of thermal stabilization on the microstructure and mechanical property of directionally solidified Ti-46Al-0.5W-0.5Si （mole fraction, %） alloy was investigated. The specimens were thermal stabilized for different time （t） and directionally solidified at a constant growth rate of 30 μm/s and temperature gradient of 20 K/mm. Dependencies of the primary dendritic spacing （λ1）, secondary dendritic spacing （λ2）, interlamellar spacing （λL） and microhardness （HV） on holding time were determined. The values of the λ1, λ2 and λL increase with the increase of t, and the value of HV decreases with the increase of t. The increase of t is helpful to obtain a good directional solidification structure. However, it reduces the mechanical property of the directionally solidified TiAl alloy. The optimized value of t is about 30 min.
The influence of Hf and B on the solidification structure of cast Ti-46Al alloys was investigated. The results show that the coupling effect of Hf and B changes the solidification structure morphology and strongly refines the grain size. When the Hf＋B contents were increased from 0 ＋ 0.0 to 3 ＋ 0.2, 5 ＋ 0.6 and 7 ＋ 1.0 （in at. %）, the solidification structure morphology changed from coarse columnar dendrite to fine columnar dendrite, then to equiaxed dendrite, and further to fine near granular grain whilst the average grain size decreased to 20 μm. It is concluded that the columnar dendrite refinement is due to the effect of Hf and B on the decrease of AI diffusion coefficient in the melt. The fine near granular grain formation is attributed to the combined constitutional supercooling formed by AI and B segregation that is strengthened by Hf and B additions at the solid/liquid interface during solidification, and the TiB2 precipitates acting as heterogeneous nuclei.
A binary continuum model for dendritic solidification transport phenomena and corresponding numerical algorithm for the strong nonlinear coupling of T-fS-CL were extended to multicomponent alloys solidified under condition of Biot≤0.1. Based on the extended model/algorithm, a method considering heat transfer was proposed to predict the solidification paths and microsegregation of alloys solidified under the same condition. The new algorithm and method were closely coupled with the commercial Thermo-Calc package via its TQ6-interface codes for instantaneous determination of the related thermodynamic data at each calculation time step. The sample simulation performed on an Al-2Si-3Mg alloy system indicates the availability and reliability of the model/algorithm and the proposed method for predicting solidification paths and microsegregation. Computional and experimental investigations on an Al-5.17Cu-2.63Si ternary alloy were conducted, and a reasonable agreement between the computation and experiment was obtained.
To investigate the diffusion reaction between Ti/Al solid diffusion couple, Ti/Al alternate foils formed by hot pressing were annealed at 525, 550, 575 and 600 °C for time ranging from 1 to 40 h. The experimental results show that TiAl3 was the only observed phase at Ti/Al interface. The interface thermodynamics favored the preferential formation of TiAl3 in Ti/Al couple. The growth of TiAl3 layer occurred mainly towards Al foil side and exhibited a parabolic law. Using the interdiffusion coefficients calculated based on the contribution of grain boundary diffusion, the growth of TiAl3 was simulated numerically with the finite difference method, and the simulated results were in good agreement with the experimental ones.
To investigate the effect of hafnium addition on the solidification structure, Ti-46AI alloys with nominal compositions of Ti-46AI-xHf （x = 0, 3, 5, 7） （at.%） were arc-melted into small ingots in an argon atmosphere. The characteristics of the macrostructures and microstructures were studied using a linear intercept method, OM, SEM （BSE）, XRD and TEM. The results showed that the ingots with Hf have near lamellar microstructure in columnar and dendrite morphology. The hafnium concentration has a strong effect on the columnar spacing refinement. Increasing Hf from 0 to 7 （at.%）, the columnar spacing can be reduced from - 1000 to-400 μm. Constitute phases of the ingots are a2, a small amount of B2 and 7. Most of the B2 phases, richer in Hf and leaner in AI and Ti, exist on the node of the dendrite core in block shape and a little across the lamellar colonies in stick shape. The 7 phases exist on the boundaries of lamellar colonies in small cellular shape. There also exists a segregation of Hf on the columnar and dendrite core. Particularly, both the a-and ,β-phase form from the melt as prior phases. The possible phase sequencing during solidification and solid-state transformations with Hf is given in this paper.
Su YanqingZhang LiGuo JingjieK. MaruyamaLi Zhiming
