Fabrication of highly heterogeneous precipitate microstructure in an α/β titanium alloy

To obtain a synergistic combination of high strength and high ductility in titanium alloys, design and creation of heterogenous precipitate microstructure have attracted increasing attention. Herein, using Ti-3Al-5Mo-4.5V (wt.%, an α/β titanium alloy) as a model alloy, we demonstrated that a highly heterogenous α-phase precipitate microstructures with well-controlled length scale of spatial heterogeneity (i.e., micron-sized primary α and nano-scale secondary α precipitates), can be synthesized through activating the ω-assisted α nucleation transformation pathway that operates in metastable β titanium alloy alone. A detailed analysis of transformation pathway for ω phase and the underlying ω-assisted α nucleation mechanisms is carried out using the integrated advanced characterizations, theoretical calculations and simulations based on DFT, and phase-field modeling. Experimental results show unambiguously that the embryonic ω particles (also known as athermal ω) with partially collapsed structure are incapable of refining secondary α (α_s). In contrast, the isothermal ω particles with a complete structural collapse play an important role in assisting α_s nucleation, resulting in the formation of the ultrafine α_s lamellae at nanoscales after two-step aging heat treatments. The contributions from the isothermal ω particles are then quantified using first-principles calculations and phase-field simulations. It is found that, even though the solute partitioning between a growing isothermal ω particle reduces the α_s nucleation driving force in the surrounding β matrix, the elastic interaction between the ω particles and the α_s nucleus provides more driving force for α_s nucleation at specific locations of the ω/β interface. Our work extends the microstructure design strategy based on ω-assisted α nucleation mechanism from metastable β to α/β Ti-alloys, thereby significantly widening the application space of the strategy.