A micromechanical analysis of the yielding behavior of individual widmanstätten colonies of an α + β titanium alloy

Abstract

The yielding behavior of individual Widmanstatten α (hcp) + β (bcc) colonies of Ti-8Al-1Mo-1V has been analyzed theoretically by considering the shearing of β platelets by slip in the α phase. Slip is assumed to initiate in the softer α phase and impinges on the harder β platelets. Under the combined actions of the external stress and impinging slip, yielding of the β platelets occurs when the von Mises effective stress in the β phase exceeds a critical value. The theoretical analysis indicates that the macroscopic slip planes in individual Widmanstatten colonies correspond to those that induce the highest stresses in the β platelets. In addition, the yield stress and the strain-hardening rate both increase with decreasing values of the angle, β b , between the slip direction and the normal to the β platelets, resulting in soft and hard slip orientations. Soft orientation of the lamellar colony is associated with α slip parallel to the macroscopic, serrated α/β interface, which includes crystallographic interface and ledges, while the hard orientation is associated with slip normal to the thin platelets. This slip anisotropy appears to arise from increasing difficulty of slip transmission across the macroscopic α/β interface when the operative slip vector impinges perpendicular to the β platelets.