Effect of strain rate on α-lath thickness of TC17 alloy after deformation and subsequent heat treatment

Abstract

Effect of strain rate on α-lath thickness of TC17 alloy with a basketweave microstructure was studied in the present work. For this purpose, this alloy was deformed in the β phase region and subsequently soluted and aged in α+β phase region. Moreover, optical micrograph (OM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) were applied to analyze the change of lath thickness at different strain rates. The result showed that α-lath thickness increased with increasing strain rate. This phenomenon was possibly attributed to the higher degree of variant selection (DVS) at higher strain rate (0.1 s-1). The higher DVS was beneficial for the formation of parallel α-lath colonies during cooling after deformation. And, these parallel α-lath colonies would more easily grow up and coarsen during subsequent heat treatment. Therefore, α-lath at higher strain rate is more thick.

Keywords

• tc17 alloy
• basketweave microstructure
• α-lath thickness
• electron backscattered diffraction