Acta mater.

48 (2000) 2803±2813
www.elsevier.com/locate/actamat

RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE

TRANSFORMATIONS DURING THERMOMECHANICAL
PROCESSING AND TREATMENT OF TiAl-BASED ALLOYS
W.-J. ZHANG{{, U. LORENZ and F. APPEL
Institute for Materials Research, GKSS Research Center, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany

(Received 7 March 2000; accepted 28 March 2000)

AbstractÐThe conversion of the cast microstructure of a Ti±45Al±10Nb (at.%) ingot due to extrusion and
subsequent heat treatments was investigated using scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The
starting lamellar microstructure was broken down by dynamic recrystallization into a ®ne-grained duplex
microstructure after extrusion, however, a small amount of remnant lamellae was retained. It was found
that the ®ne substructures in the remnant lamellae varied from one area to another. Recrystallization and
phase boundary bulging were found to be the major mechanisms responsible for lamellar globularization.
The existence of remnant lamellae was ascribed to the anisotropic ¯ow behavior of the starting lamellar
colonies. Microstructural and process variables that in¯uence the scale of remnant lamellae will be eluci-
dated. Annealing in the …a ‡ g† two-phase ®eld cannot eliminate the remnant lamellar structures. However,
the detrimental e€ect of remnant lamellae can be minimized after alpha treatments provided that the rem-
nant lamellae are smaller than about 80 mm. 7 2000 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevier Science
Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Intermetallic compounds; Recrystallization & recovery; Phase transformations; Extrusion

1. INTRODUCTION structure through thermomechanical processing [3±

Gamma TiAl-based alloys have a variable potential 5]. The wrought microstructure generally consists of
for high temperature structural applications. The in- ®ne-grained recrystallized areas and some remnant
itial applications will probably involve as-cast ma- lamellar colonies. The amount of remnant lamellar
terials in low-risk cases. But for higher risk areas varies from approximately 5 to 60 vol.%
applications, the microstructural de®ciencies of cast depending on the applied hot-working technique,
alloys are likely to be of great concern. Extensive process variables and the initial lamellar grain size
investigations over the past few years have demon- [1, 4]. The existence of coarse remnant lamellar
strated [1±6] that hot working can reduce casting areas is apparently detrimental to the mechanical
inhomogeneity, re®ne the as-cast coarse grains, and properties of wrought alloys. Therefore, how to
greatly improve the mechanical properties of the eliminate the remnant lamellar structure is an im-
product. portant point that needs to be considered during
Typical thermomechanical processes for the processing of gamma alloys.
breakdown of TiAl ingots include isothermal for- Previous work on the hot working of TiAl alloys
ging, conventional (canned) forging, and conven- mostly focused on the processing related aspects [1±
tional (canned) extrusion [1]. Prior to hot working, 6]. However, only a few of the studies are available
the ingots are hot isostatically pressed (HIP) or on the detail of the recovery and recrystallization
given a homogenization heat treatment prior to
processes occurring during hot working and sub-
working. The starting material generally has thus a
sequent annealing [7, 8]. In the present study, the
lamellar dominant microstructure. It is often di-
development of microstructure in a gamma alloy
cult to completely break down the lamellar micro-
was investigated by scanning and transmission elec-
tron microscopy after hot extrusion and subsequent
static heat treatment. Special attention was given to
{ Formerly Alexander von Humboldt fellow, now with
the RD & E Center, Philip Morris USA, Richmond, VA the remnant lamellar areas, in an attempt to assess
23234, USA. the mechanisms of lamellar globularization. From
{ To whom all correspondence should be addressed. this study methods of how to break down the cast

1359-6454/00/$20.00 7 2000 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 9 - 6 4 5 4 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 9 3 - 8
2804 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

lamellar structure on a broader scale may be 2. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES

suggested. The Ti±45Al±10Nb ingots measuring 70 mm in
The alloy studied in this paper is a high Nb con- diameter and 860 mm in length were HIP'ed at
taining TiAl-based alloy Ti±45Al±10Nb. Alloys 12608C/175 MPa for 4 h. Cylindrical preforms were
with this base composition are currently intensively machined from the as-received ingots, canned, and
studied, because of their superior strength [9±11], then preheated at 12508C (a temperature high in
good oxidation resistance [12, 13] and excellent the a ‡ g ®eld) for about 1.5 h. After preheating,
creep resistance [14]. Due to the relatively high Nb the work pieces were extruded at a ram speed of
content, signi®cant changes of the phase boundaries 20 mm/s to a reduction in area of 7:1, followed by
and transformation pathways have been recognized air cooling. For subsequent heat treatments,
in these alloys [15], which have to be considered for samples 10 mm in length were cut from the
the optimization of the hot working route. extruded rods. Heat treatments were conducted at
Investigation of these related issues is the second 11508C (a temperature low in the a ‡ g ®eld) for
objective of the present paper. 10 min or 2 h and 13208C (the alpha transus tem-
perature) for 40 s or 5 min, respectively.
The as-received ingot material (diameter 70 mm)
and the extruded and extruded plus heat treated
samples (diameter 26 mm) were examined longitud-
inally at approximately the mid-radius locations.
Examination was performed on a Zeiss DSM962
scanning electron microscope in the backscattered
mode (BSE) and a Philips CM 200 transmission
electron microscope operated at 200 kV. Thin foils
for TEM were prepared by grinding and twin jet
polishing using a solution of 3% perchloric acid,
35% 2-butanol in methanol at ÿ358C at 20 V.

3. RESULTS

3.1. Microstructure prior to extrusion

The microstructure of the starting material may
be modi®ed during preheating. In order to study
possible e€ects, samples were subjected to the same
treatment as has been used for extrusion (that is
annealing at 12508C for 1.5 h), followed by water
quenching. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the material exhi-
bits a nearly fully lamellar microstructure with the
mean colony size of approximately of 450 mm,
which may be considered as the starting microstruc-
ture for extrusion. A small amount of equiaxed
gamma and alpha-two grains was observed along
the colony boundaries. In this and subsequent back-
scattered micrographs, the dark phase is gamma
(low atomic number) and the white phase is alpha
(or alpha-two) (high atomic number). In addition
there was a very small amount of beta phase.
Because the material was not homogenized, the
dark interdendritic Al-rich regions can be clearly
recognized. We also note that the lath orientations
of some lamellar colonies (I and II) are nearly par-
allel to the intended extrusion direction.

Fig. 1. Conversion of the cast microstructure of a Ti± 3.2. As-extruded microstructures

45Al±10Nb ingot due to extrusion. BSE micrograph of (a)
the cast microstructure annealing at 12508C for 1.5 h (pre- After extrusion the material shows a ®brous
heat temperature for extrusion) and water quenching, and
(b) the microstructure after extrusion at 12508C to a re- microstructure at low magni®cation consisting of
duction in area of 7:1. See text for the details. The radial ``strung out'' prior lamellar colonies aligned in the
direction is vertical and the extrusion direction horizontal. extrusion direction, Fig. 1(b). In most areas, the
 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS 2805

lamellae were completely broken down into globu- lamellar structure is nearly completely preserved
larized duplex microstructure (areas A and D). The (just bent slightly), especially the regions consisting
details of these broken-down (BD) microstructure of coarse alpha and thin gamma laths [marked as
are more readily seen in higher magni®cation micro- arrows a and b in Fig. 2(b)]. In area C of Fig. 1(b),
graphs, Fig. 2(a). However, in some regions rem- many recrystallized gamma grains have formed and
nant lamellar (RL) structures can still be seen, areas this has resulted in the lamellae being broken into
B and C in Fig. 1(b) for example. In area B, the fragments, see Fig. 2(c). Note that the remnant
lamellae are mostly closely oriented to the extrusion
direction [Fig. 1(b)] and the length of the remnant
lamellae varies from about 30 to 150 mm.
Figure 3 shows a view of the BD structure using
bright-®eld TEM. The BD areas are characterized
by a microstructure consisting of worked grains
(and subgrains) containing a high density of dislo-
cations and networks plus ®ne equiaxed grains
essentially free of dislocations. The small dislo-
cation-free grains could be the result of static
recrystallization during air cooling after extrusion.
The numerous grains which contain dislocations
must have recrystallized and subsequently under-
gone further working during extrusion; that is they
recrystallized dynamically. This hypothesis was sup-
ported by the ®ne equiaxed gamma grains (that are
recrystallized) observed in the BSE micrograph,
Fig. 2(a). The grain size distribution and volume
fraction of the statically recrystallized grains and
worked grains are presented in Fig. 4(a). The data
given were determined from at least 200 grains. As
can be seen, the mean grain size of the statically
recrystallized gamma grains is small (0.6 mm), but
their volume fraction is as high as 36%. This means
that static recrystallization occurred very fast during
air cooling after extrusion via the nucleation of
many new grains. The ®ne grain size of the worked
grains (0.9 mm) suggested that the BD areas were
deformed severely during hot extrusion.
The typical deformation substructures observed
in the RL areas are shown in Fig. 5. The lamellar

Fig. 2. Microstructures observed after extrusion at 12508C

to a reduction in area of 7:1. BSE micrographs showing a Fig. 3. TEM micrograph showing ®ne dislocation-free
high magni®cation view of (a) the broken-down areas, and grains (A and C) and worked grains (D and E) observed
(b) and (c) the remnant lamellar areas. See text for details. in the BD areas. Extrusion at 12508C to a reduction in
The extrusion direction is horizontal in all micrographs. area of 7:1.
2806 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

morphology was eventually preserved. As known, adjacent subgrains aA and aB but only of 6 deg
the g and a(a2) phases in perfect lamellar structure between the top subgrain aA and the end subgrain
have the orientation relationships [16, 17] aE. Accordingly, a new recrystallized gamma grain
has formed between aA and aB (marked with arrow
…111†g ==…0001†a and  g ==h1120i
h110Š  a …1† 1).
In the adjacent gamma laths (gA and gB), a high
where the {111}g plane is parallel to the lamellar density of dislocations and deformation twins was
boundaries. However, the Kikuchi patterns from observed, respectively. In heavily twinned laths
the adjacent laths (subgrains) gA, aA and gB indi- (that is gA), recrystallization was rarely observed. In
cated a large misorientation of about 9 deg from the dislocation-dominated laths gB, a few new
the perfect relationships given in equation (1). This recrystallized grains were seen. Note that the new
result suggests that the lamellae have been heavily grains gC tend to keep the orientation relationships
deformed during extrusion. In fact, the a laths were given in equation (1).
converted by extensive deformation into ®ne sub- Figure 6 shows a high magni®cation view of the
grains (or grains) which exhibit di€erent contrasts ®ne substructure of a gamma lath containing a high
in Fig. 5 because of their misorientations. The de- density of dislocations. The gamma laths were sub-
formation was inhomogeneous as indicated by the divided into domains (gE and gF) by thin transverse
di€erence of misorientations between subgrains. alpha laths aL. These alpha laths are likely to be
There is a misorientation of 16 deg between the induced by adiabatic heating due to the defor-
mation during extrusion. In the gamma domains,
recovery has taken place, leading to the formation
of dislocation networks and low angle boundaries.
It is worth noting that the regions 1 ' and 2 ' (in
domains gE and gF, respectively) are almost free of
dislocations. They are neither recrystallized new
grains nor recovered subgrains because no bound-
aries between the dislocation-free region 1 ' and the
main domain 1 were present. The curvature of the
grain boundaries between these regions and the
adjacent a laths suggested that these clean areas
formed by growth of the gamma domains into a
laths after extrusion (during air cooling), that is by
a mechanism of phase (grain) boundary bulging [8].
The progress of phase boundary bulging can lead
to the breakdown of a laths. This e€ect is evident
in Fig. 5 at the sites marked with arrows 2 and 3.
Consistent with the BSE observations, the extent
of deformation subjected by the RL areas was
di€erent at di€erent sites. Figure 7 presents an
example of the RL areas which were only slightly
deformed. There were no subgrains in the a laths
and no evidence of phase boundary bulging. The
lamellar interfaces remained ¯at. Dislocation net-
works and low angle boundaries were observed in
the relatively coarse g lath E …00:8 mm† but not in
the thinner laths F±H (0.1±0.3 mm), see Fig. 7. It
should be noted that the mean lamellar interspacing
in this area of about 0.2 mm is much smaller than
that shown in Fig. 5 (0.9 mm).

3.3. Microstructures after heat treatment at 11508C

During annealing at 11508C, static recrystalliza-

tion occurred in the BD areas. The microstructure
Fig. 4. Distribution of grain sizes of statically recrystal- after annealing for 10 min at 11508C was composed
lized gamma grains and worked (or recovered) gamma mainly of ®ne recrystallized g grains almost free of
grains measured using TEM in (a) as-extruded material
and (b) microstructure after extrusion followed by anneal- dislocations [Fig. 8(a)] and additionally a certain
ing at 11008C for 10 min and air cooling. The mean grain number of recovered grains [Fig. 8(b)]. The volume
size and volume fraction are given in the inset boxes. fraction of the recrystallized g grains increased from
 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS 2807

36% in the as-extruded state to 62% after anneal- of worked (recovered) grains to large grain sizes
ing, Fig. 4. The spread of the size distribution curve after annealing suggests that the ®ner worked grains
of the recrystallized grains to large values after were more easily consumed by the recrystallized
annealing [Fig. 4(b)] indicates that recrystallization grains because of their higher stored energies.
proceeds mainly by the growth of existing grains In comparison, static recovery dominated in the
and to a lesser extent by the nucleation of new RL areas during annealing. The rearrangement of
grains. The shift of the grain size distribution curve dislocations leads to the formation of polygonized

Fig. 5. TEM micrograph showing the ®ne structures in a heavily deformed remnant lamellar area; the
inset Kikuchi patterns indicate the misorientation between di€erent grains or subgrains. Note that the
prior continuous alpha laths were broken up at the sites marked with arrows 1±3. See text for more
details.
2808 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

Fig. 6. TEM micrograph showing the substructures of a gamma lath in remnant lamellar areas. See
text for details.

subgrains, Fig. 8(c). New recrystallized grains can 3.4. Microstructures after heat treatment at 13208C
be occasionally observed like the grain of 9 deg mis-
orientation shown in Fig. 8(c). As a result, the evi- During heat treatment at 13208C (the alpha
dence of the RL regions can still be seen as coarse transus temperature), the g 4 a transformation
elongated g grains plus segments of a laths even takes place in a di€erent manner in the BD and RL
after 2 h annealing at 11508C, Fig. 8(d); in contrast regions. In the BD areas, new alpha grains were
the BD areas exhibit a uniform, ®ne-grained dual formed along the grain boundaries and/or on dislo-
structure. cations within the gamma grain interior after 40 s

Fig. 7. TEM micrograph of the microstructure of a slightly deformed remnant lamellar area in the as-
extruded material. Note that dislocation networks and low angle boundaries developed in the coarse
lath E, but are almost absent in the thinner laths F±H.
 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS 2809

at 13208C, Fig. 9(a). It is important to note that the RL areas must therefore have their lamellar orien-
new alpha grains are randomly oriented as con- tations close to such directions, because the g/a
®rmed by the Kikuchi patterns. In contrast, in the laths keep the orientation relationship given in
RL regions the transformation proceeds simply by equation (1) during the phase transformation.
the thickening of remnant alpha laths, Fig. 9(b). Figure 9(c) shows a nearly fully lamellar micro-
Because the segments of the alpha laths within one structure developed after heat treatment at 13208C
RL area have nearly the same orientation, a certain for 5 min followed by furnace cooling. The distri-
RL area is expected to be completely transformed bution of the grain sizes with respect to their lamel-
into a single alpha grain. Therefore, the grain size lae orientations of about 200 lamellar colonies is
of the newly formed alpha grain (or the lamellar presented in Fig. 10. The lamellar colonies are ran-
colony after cooling) will be limited by the size of domly oriented except for a weak tendency of tex-
the RL area. The existence of coarse RL areas will ture around y ˆ 108 and 508 (y is the angle between
thus result in the formation of unusually large lamellar boundaries and the extrusion direction).
lamellar colonies. Recall that the RL areas are gen- Moreover, the distribution of grain sizes is uniform
erally oriented nearly parallel to the extrusion direc- with respect to the lamellae orientations. There was
tion. The lamellar colonies descended from prior no preferred alignment of coarse lamellar colonies

Fig. 8. TEM micrographs showing (a) new recrystallized gamma grains and (b) recovered grains
observed in the BD areas and (c) polygonized subgrains formed in the remnant gamma laths after heat
treatment at 11008C for 10 min followed by air cooling. The angles marked in (c) are the misorienta-
tions between the subgrains with respect to subgrain A. (d) BSE micrograph showing ®ne equiaxed
grains developed in prior BD areas and coarse lamellae formed in prior RL areas after heat treatment
at 11008C for 2 h followed by air cooling.
2810 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

Fig. 10. Grain size distribution of the lamellar colonies

with respect to their orientation in the microstructure heat
treated at 13208C for 5 min and furnace cooled. y is the
angle between the lamellar boundaries and the extrusion
direction. A weak texture was indicated around y ˆ 108
and 508.

4. DISCUSSION

4.1. Origin of the remnant lamellar structure

The existence of remnant lamellar (RL) areas in
wrought TiAl alloys can be ascribed to the aniso-
tropic plastic behavior of lamellar colonies. The
yield stress of lamellar TiAl strongly depends on
the angle f between the lamellar boundaries and
the loading axis. When the loading axis is perpen-
dicular to lamellar boundaries …f ˆ 908), the yield
stress is the highest …sy ˆ 260 MPa at 11008C)
according to the data estimated on PST crystal [18].
In this direction, the deformation must propagate
through the lamellar interfaces, and the a2 phase
has to deform in its hardest slip mode (pyramidal
slip). When the lamellar boundaries are inclined at
an intermediate angle to the loading axis, the lamel-
lar colonies easily deform by shear parallel to the
interfacial planes …sy 070 MPa at 11008C). When
the lamellar boundaries are parallel to the loading
axis …f ˆ 08), the yield stress is moderately high
…sy ˆ 180 MPa at 11008C) [18].
Fig. 9. Formation of alpha phase (a) via nucleation of ran- Therefore, during the ®rst stage of hot working,
domly oriented alpha grains (A±C) in the BD areas (TEM the lamellar colonies in soft orientations will exten-
micrograph) and (b) via thickening of residual alpha laths sively deform, whereas the colonies in hard orien-
in the RL areas (BSE micrograph) after heat treatment at
13208C for 40 s and air cooled. (c) BSE micrograph of the tations were deformed to a much lesser extent. As a
near-fully lamellar microstructure developed after heat result, dynamic recrystallization proceeds in the soft
treatment at 13208C for 5 min and furnace cooled. lamellar colonies and at colony boundaries [1]. The
lamellae in these areas are broken down into ®ne
near y ˆ 08 (with the lamellae orientations nearly recrystallized grains (the BD areas), making these
parallel to the extrusion direction). One exception areas even softer. Additional plastic ¯ow due to
which is suspected to be evolved from prior coarse subsequent processing is then readily accommo-
RL structure is the colony B shown in Fig. 9(c). dated by these softened BD areas. At the same
This colony has an unusually large grain size of time, it is very dicult to impart plastic work into
about 250 mm and a lamellar orientation of y ˆ 258 the hard lamellar areas. At the end of processing,
with respect to the extrusion direction.
 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS 2811

the hot work accumulated in the hard areas was comprised preheating high in the a ‡ g ®eld, cooling
not large enough to induce any recrystallization as rapidly as possible to an isothermal forging tem-
(Fig. 7), or the recrystallization occurred in a low perature substantially lower within this two-phase
nucleation density which is not suciently e€ective ®eld, followed by instantaneous forging. The ``alpha
for a breakdown of the lamellar structures (Fig. 5). forged'' pancake contained much less remnant
These areas were ®nally retained as the remnant lamellar structure than that produced by standard
lamellar (RL) regions. This interpretation is consist- isothermal forging practice. Furthermore, the extent
ent with the fact that remnant lamellae mostly have and volume fraction of remnant lamellae in the
their lamellar boundaries parallel to the extrusion pancake conventionally forged at 12508C were
direction [Fig. 1(b)], that is in a hard orientation. found to be smaller than those (conventionally)
This observation agrees with previous studies on forged at 11508C [5]. Oehring et al. [19] also
forged TiAl alloys, which demonstrated that the demonstrated that extrusion at 13008C (in the a ‡ g
lamellar boundaries of remnant lamellae are perpen- two-phase ®eld) leads to more homogeneous micro-
dicular to the forging direction [3, 4]. structures as compared with extrusion at 12508C.
In addition to the working temperature, the
strain rate is another critical factor. At higher stain
4.2. How to reduce the remnant lamellar structure? rates, more work is expected to be put into the
hard lamellar colonies due to work hardening of
As shown in Fig. 5, the two mechanisms respon- the soft colonies (and the later BD areas) and thus
sible for lamellar globularization are recrystalliza- bene®t in breaking up the lamellar microstructure
tion and phase boundary bulging (the former being on a broader scale. The reduced amount of remnant
more e€ective). To achieve more e€ective recrystal- lamellar microstructure observed in the convention-
lization, it is necessary to impart more hot work ally forged pancakes was attributed by Semiatin et
into the hard lamellar areas as discussed above. al. [5] to the higher strain rates imposed as com-
From a microstructural point of view, a ®ne colony pared with those used for isothermal forging.
size guarantees more uniform deformation. Thus,
the lamellar breakdown must be easier to achieve in
®ne-grained lamellar microstructures as con®rmed 4.3. In¯uence of the remnant lamellae on the ®nal
by previous works [1, 19]. The second factor to be microstructures
considered is the lamellar interspacing. Reducing
the interlamellar spacing will provide more inter- After heat treatment in the alpha plus gamma
facial barriers to deformation in hard oriented two-phase ®eld, the BD areas exhibit a ®ne recrys-
lamellar colonies and thus increases their hardness. tallized duplex structure but the RL areas remained
In this context, ®ne interspacing is likely to be detri- as lamellae consisting of coarse elongated gamma
mental to lamellar structure breakdown. As shown laths plus short alpha segments, Fig. 8(d). The rem-
in Fig. 7, the dislocation density in ®ner gamma nant lamellar structures cannot be eliminated even
laths is much lower than that in coarse laths. after high-temperature heat treatment at 12608C for
Furthermore, the extent of deformation and recrys- 2 h [5]. We believe this is because recovery rather
tallization in the RL areas with relatively coarse than recrystallization dominated in the RL areas
lamellar interspacing (Fig. 5) is higher than that during annealing, Fig. 8(c). Even if recrystallization
with ®ner interlamellar spacing (Fig. 7). The e€ect occurred in some RL areas, Fig. 5, the nucleation
of lamellar interspacing on globularization has to density of new grains is relatively low and these
be con®rmed by further studies. new grains tend to keep the orientation relation-
Concerning process variables, the preheating tem- ships given in equation (1). Thus, the characteristics
perature seems to be quite important. At higher of the lamellar structure were preserved. Such unu-
temperature (in the alpha plus gamma ®eld), the sual recrystallization behavior was also found in
improved workability of the materials allows the cold-rolled PST crystals of TiAl [7]. During anneal-
imparting of more plastic strain and thus leads to a ing at 9008C, recrystallization occurred in a manner
more homogeneous deformation of the lamellar without disturbing the lamellar orientation relation-
microstructure. Also, the alpha laths formed at ship in the specimens cold rolled to less than 20%.
these high working temperatures are thermodynami- But randomly oriented new grains were formed as
cally more unstable when cooled to low temperature the deformation became greater than 40%.
after processing (because of their higher supersatu- The existence of remnant lamellar microstructure
rated Al concentrations). This results in a larger after annealing is apparently detrimental to the
driving force (chemical energy in addition to strain mechanical properties of the alloys. A strong orien-
energy) for the globularization of alpha laths via tation dependence of fracture toughness with
recrystallization and/or via phase boundary bulging respect to the extrusion direction was observed in
(of gamma grains). The bene®cial e€ect of higher the studied Ti±45Al±10Nb alloys after annealing at
working temperature was demonstrated by the so- 10308C for 2 h; the fracture toughness KQ measured
called ``alpha forging'' approach [1]. This approach perpendicular to the extrusion direction is higher
2812 ZHANG et al.: RECOVERY, RECRYSTALLIZATION AND PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS

(25.2 MPa/m1/2) than that (17.6 MPa/m1/2) parallel 3. Recrystallized grains were occasionally observed
to the extrusion direction [20]. Such anisotropic in some remnant lamellar areas and these new
behavior cannot be simply explained by the weak grains grew in a manner of preserving the lamel-
textures observed [20], but may more likely be re- lar characteristics. Recrystallization and phase
lated (at least partially) to the remnant lamellar boundary bulging were found to be the major
microstructure. A low fracture toughness was mechanisms responsible for lamellar globulariza-
observed as microcracks propagate along the (rem- tion.
nant) lamellar interfaces [21], which are preferen- 4. The existence of remnant lamellae in wrought
tially aligned parallel to the extrusion direction. TiAl was ascribed to the strong anisotropic de-
After heat treatment in the single alpha phase formation behavior of lamellar colonies. The
®eld, the in¯uence of the RL structure seems not so amount of remnant lamellar structure is expected
pronounced, as demonstrated in Fig. 9(c). As men- to be reduced by decreasing the initial lamellar
tioned earlier, the existence of coarse RL areas can colony size, increasing the interlamellar spacing,
result in the formation of unusually large alpha preheating the work pieces to higher temperature
grains. However, the existence of small RL areas and processing at a relatively high strain rate.
may not in¯uence the ®nal lamellar microstructure 5. The remnant lamellae were dicult to remove by
achieved after alpha treatment. The data in Fig. 10 annealing in the alpha plus gamma two-phase
indicate that the growth of new alpha grains in the ®eld because recovery dominated in these rem-
wrought materials is very fast during the ®rst few nant lamellar areas during annealing. However,
minutes of alpha treatments. After 5 min at 13208C, the detrimental e€ect of remnant lamellae can be
most of the alpha grains have a grain size larger minimized by alpha treatments provided that the
than 80 mm. Consistent with this fact, the ®nest remnant lamellar areas are smaller than a size of
fully lamellar microstructure obtained in wrought about 80 mm.
TiAl alloys up to date has a mean colony size of
about 120 mm [2]. Thus, the presence of RL areas in
wrought TiAl may not coarsen the ®nal lamellar
AcknowledgementsÐThe authors acknowledge helpful dis-
microstructures provided that the remnant lamellae cussions and assistance from Drs J. Paul, U. Brossmann
are kept smaller than a critical size of about 80 mm. and M. Oehring. One of the authors (W.J.Z.) would like
The growth of the RL areas is considered to be to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for
marginal during the ®rst few minutes of alpha treat- ®nancial support. He is also in debt to the support from
ments because the conversion of remnant g ‡ a Professor R. Wagner (JuÈlich Research Center, Germany)
and Professor G. L. Chen (University of Science and
lamellae into alpha grains (which is a slow ledge- Technology Beijing, P.R. China).
controlled process) will not be completed within
such a short time [22].
Finally, the present investigation demonstrated REFERENCES
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successfully processed by the conventional tech- Seetharaman, V., in Structural Intermetallics, ed. M.
niques used for conventional TiAl-based alloys. V. Nathal, et al. TMS, Warrendale, PA, 1997,
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