Processing, Microstructures and Properties of a Ti-6Al-4V Extrusion Produced by an Industrial Scale Setup

Abstract

In this paper, a Ti-6Al-4V rectangular bar was successfully produced from a 5kg blended powder mixture using an industrial scale extrusion facility. The elemental hydride-dehydride (HDH) titanium and 60Al-40V master alloy mixture was warm pressed and vacuum sintered prior to β extrusion in air. The as-processed material was characterised for compositional homogeneity, oxygen pickup, microstructure, tensile properties and fracture behavior. Variation in microstructure and properties along the length of the extruded bar were also studied. It was found that oxygen pickup mainly occurred during vacuum sintering of the green billet and consequently the as-extruded material had an oxygen content of 0.55 wt.%. The processed material had a typical lamellar morphology with some evidence of micro-cracks at high magnification. A significant deviation in prior β grain and α colony sizes was observed along the length of the bar, due to variations in extrusion temperature and cooling rate. Both grains and colonies became finer as the location changed from the tip of the extruded bar to the back end. The as-processed material had ultimate tensile strength in the range of 1068-1268 MPa and elongation to fracture of 1.2-4.5%, mainly due to the high oxygen content and non-optimised microstructure. Fractographic analysis was consistent with the variation in mechanical performances obtained.