Effects of the Growth Rate on the High-temperature Tensile Properties and Micro-organization of Directionally Solidified Ti-44Al-9Nb-1Cr-0.2W-0.2Y Alloys

Abstract

In this experiment, Ti-44Al-9Nb-1Cr-0.2W-0.2Y alloy was prepared by the directional solidification method. The effect of different growth rates on tensile properties and microstructure orientation at high temperature was studied. Three kinds of alloys with different growth rates of 10 μm/s, 15 μm/s and 20 μm/s were prepared. The results show that the tensile properties of the alloy at 800 ℃ decrease with increasing growth rate, and recrystallization occurred at the position of intracrystal fracture in the microstructure. The size of columnar crystals decreases with the increase of the growth rate, increasing the number of grains and decreasing the orientation difference between the growth and axial directions as well as the preferred orientation of lamellar, and the anisotropy of the material, which leads to the obvious decrease of the tensile strength and plasticity. Combined with electron backscattering diffraction test results, the lamellar orientation of the effective parts of the three specimens after high temperature stretching was studied. It was found that the axial preferred orientation of the alloy specimens decreased obviously with the increase of the growth rate, and the orientation became disorderly and the uniformity of lamellar thickness decreased gradually with the increase of the growth rate. In addition, it was found that a new single-phase γ phase is formed in the microstructure after high temperature stretching, and the distribution range increased with the increase of the growth rate, which seriously degraded the axial preferred orientation of the alloy. It can be concluded that the directionally solidified alloy with a growth rate of 10 μm/s has better microstructure orientation and high temperature tensile properties.