The superplasticity and microstructure evolution of TC11 titanium alloy

The superplasticity is the capability of some metallic materials to exhibit very highly tensile elongation before failure. The superplastic tensile tests were carried out at various deformation conditions in this paper to investigate the superplastic behaviors and microstructure evolution of TC11 titanium alloy. The results indicate that the smaller the grain size, the better the superplasticity is, and the wider the superplastic temperature and strain rate is, in which the superplastic temperature is ranging from 1023 to 1223 K and the strain rate is ranging from 4.4 x 10(-5) to 1.1 x 10(-2) s(-1). The maximum tensile elongation is 1260% at the optimum deformation conditions (1173 K and 2.2 x 10(-4) s(-1)). For further enhancing the superplasticity of TC11 titanium alloy, the novel tensile method of maximum m superplastic deformation is adopted in the paper. Compared with the conventional tensile methods, the excellent superplasticity of TC11 titanium alloy has been found with its maximum elongation of 2300%. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.