Effect of heat treatment and thermomechanical processing on microstructure and tensile property of Ti-44Al-8Nb-0.2W-0.2B-0.5Y alloy

High Nb-TiAl (Ti-44Al-8Nb-0.2W-0.2B-0.5Y, at.%) ingot was fabricated by vacuum arc remelting (VAR). The as-cast ingot was hot-isostatic pressed (HIP) and homogenizing annealing processed. The influence of heat treatment temperature and thermomechanical processing on the microstructure and tensile property of the alloy was investigated by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and tensile tests. It was found that the high Nb-TiAl alloy after HIP and annealing was mainly composed of coarse alpha(2)/gamma lamellae, beta/B2 phase and gamma phase and the solidification path of this alloy was: L -> L+beta ->beta ->alpha+beta ->alpha ->alpha+beta+gamma ->alpha(2)+beta+gamma. The water quenching results showed that the alloy was in alpha single phase region at 1,340 degrees C. After heating at 1,340 degrees C for 30 min followed by furnace cooling, the alloy showed a full lamellar microstructure and its ultimate tensile strength was about 538 MPa, with an elongation of 0.3% at room temperature. Free-crack forged pancakes with fine-grained fully lamellar structure (FFLS) were obtained with an initial deformation temperature of 1,340 degrees C and the ultimate tensile strength of forged alloy was about 820 MPa, with an elongation of 0.9% at room temperature, which was much higher than that of alloy after HIP and annealing because of microstructural refinement.