Normalized characterization of the causes of discontinuous yield and crystal orientation deflection mechanism of β-Ti alloy during high-temperature deformation

To investigate the changes in grain orientation resulting from dislocation slip systems and propose a novel approach to characterizing discontinuous yield behavior during hot deformation, Ti–6V–5Al–5Mo–5Cr–3Nb–2Zr-0.2Si alloy was melted using vacuum arc furnace and subjected to hot compressed at 740, 790, 840 and 890 °C, along with strain rates (ε˙) of 0.001, 0.01, 0.1 and 0.5 s⁻¹. The results indicate that discontinuous yield is observed at temperatures (T) of 740 or 790 °C and ε˙ of 0.1 and 0.5 s⁻¹. Discontinuous yielding occurs at all strain rates when T is 840 and 890 °C. The presence of discontinuous yield is only observed when the power dissipation value exceeds the critical value, which in this study is 0.2657. Notably, this is the first instance in which the power dissipation value has been utilized to characterize the presence of discontinuous yield. The microstructure of the discontinuous yield reveals the activation of dislocation slip in the β grain. The dislocation slip is initially activated in the <001> oriented β grains during hot compression, followed by activation in the adjacent <101> oriented β grains. When the power dissipation exceeds the critical value, the dislocations more readily spread to the <101> oriented β grains due to higher activation energy, which is an important reason for discontinuous yield. The <101> oriented β grains gradually deflect to <2−3−1> oriented and finally rotate to <001> oriented during the subsequent compression process, as a means of reducing deformation resistance.