Part VII - Papers - Superplasticity in Some Titanium and Zirconium Alloys

Tlze condition of superplasticity or neck-resistanl flow that results front high strain-rate sensitivity has been observed in isothermal tension tests on several titanium alloys and one of zirconium hi general, il was associated with reasonably fine-grain micro-structures being stvained in the transformation range at rates below i - 10 -3 sec-&apos;. The metallographic mean-free path, L, was measured at room temperature after rapid cooling from the temperature of test-ing. The flow stress of Ti-GAL-4V at 950°C was proportional to La at different constanl <; the value of a decreased with increasing. E but at E< 1.5 x 10-4 sec-1 it varied only from 0.9 to 1.25. The findings were interpreted to mean that viscous boundary shear is the rate-controlling process of deformation at high levels of strain rate sensitivity in these materials. Elongation of over 1000 pet could be obtained, but a1 temperatures so high and rates so low that any practical application of the full effect would probably be difficult. As the transformation range was narrowed, by turning from Ti-6AL-4V to Ti-5Al-2.5sn to nomznally pure titanium, the allowable temperature varialion was correspondingly reduced. Superplasticily was not found in Armco iron, presumably because the transformation range was too narrow to allow the developtnenl of a reasonably stable microstructure for isolhermal lesting. THE work represented by this paper grew out of a recent study of texture hardening in a(hcp) titanium and zirconium-alloy sheet,&apos; of which part has now been published.2 It was found that, with heating, the tensile plastic-anisotropy index, R,* was decreased from well above 1 towards 1 as the temperature range for the a(hcp) -ß(bcc) phase change was entered. The clearest example of that trend is illustrated with previously unpublished data in Fig. 1. It might have been thought that such a development resulted simply from introduction of the cubic and therefore plastically less anisotropic phase. However, the accompanying change in the index of tensile strain-rate sensitivity, m = a log a/a log E, was rapidly upwards, to a high of 0.85 in some cases (also illustrated in Fig. 1). At the same time, the total tensile elongation rose to a maximum and the flow strength dropped away as R (and m) approached 1. Taken together, the observations cannot be understood as resulting from the presence of cubic phase, per se. It has been concluded instead that they reflect the largely noncrystallographic deformation which characterizes superplasticity. As demonstrated in other recent work? a necessary condition for super-plasticity is strain-rate sensitivity of flow stress sufficiently high that m is above a lower limit of -0.3. The origin of large m has been traced, in turn, to grain size so small that a substantial amount of viscous deformation is introduced by such processes as Nabarro-Herring diffusional flow4 and/or grain boundary shear.5,6 Because of problems in the processing of titanium and zirconium alloys—problems of high strength, limited ductility, and excessive springback, originating largely in slip resistance-it was natural to wonder if something useful might be done with superplasticity in those materials. Therefore experiments were made for more closely identifying and generally bounding the phenomenon with temperature and strain-rate limits, before attempting to decide about its exploitation. The results are being reported here. EXPERIMENTAL Materials. The two of primary interest were the titanium alloys of nominal composition (in wt pct) 5A1-2.5Sn and 6A1-4V. Others were a 4A1-1/4O2 titanium alloy, titanium of commercial purity (RC-70), Zircaloy-4. and Armco iron. All were received as annealed 3/16 in. thick sheet, except RC-70 which was & in. thick, and tested in that condition. Details of transformation temperature and grain size are given in Table I. The results of dilatometry for the measurement of transformation temperatures were unsatisfactory. Data were finally obtained by metallographic examination of each specimen after test, to determine from the amount of transformed 4 where the specimen had been heated in relation to the critical temperatures. Results were in reasonable agreement with information from the supplier. Strip tensile specimens were of full sheet thickness and taken along the rolling direction, except for those