Formation mechanism of α lamellae during β→α transformation in polycrystalline dual-phase Ti alloys

Abstract

Phase field simulations incorporating contributions from chemical free energy and anisotropic interfacial energy are presented for the β→α transformation in Ti-6Al-4 V alloy to investigate the growth mechanism of α lamellae of various morphologies from undercooled β matrix. The α colony close to realistic microstructure was generated by coupling the Thermo-Calc thermodynamic parameters of α and β phases with the phase field governing equations. The simulations show that α lamellar side branches with feathery morphology can form under a certain combination of interfacial energy anisotropy and temperature. α lamellae tend to grow slowly at high heat treatment temperature and become wider and thicker as temperature increase from 800 to 900 °C provided that the interfacial energy anisotropy ratio kx: ky was set as 0.1: 0.6. Besides, higher interfacial energy anisotropy can accelerate the formation of α lamellae, and the equilibrium shape of α lamellae changes from rod to plate as the interface energy anisotropy ratio kx: ky vary from 0.1: 0.4 to 0.1: 0.8 under 820 °C. Experiments were conducted to study the α lamellar side branches in Ti-6Al-4 V (Ti-6.01Al-3.98 V, wt.%) and Ti-4211 (Ti-4.02Al-2.52V-1.54Mo-1.03Fe, wt.%) alloys with lamellar microstructure. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) results show that α lamellar side branches and their related lamellae share the same orientation. The predicted temperature range for α lamellar side branches formation under various interfacial energy anisotropy is consistent with experimental results.