Effect of commercial purity levels on the mechanical properties of ultrafine-grained titanium Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Two grades of commercial purity (CP) titanium (grades 2 and 4) were processed using equal-channel angular extrusion (ECAE) at 300C and 450C, respectively. The processing temperatures were the minimum temperatures at which eight pass ECAE could be performed without any shear-localization. The coarse-grained (CG) microstructures of as-received grade-2 and grade-4 CP-Ti, with average grain sizes of 110m and 70m, respectively, were refined down to sub-micron levels with a mean grain size of about 300nm for both grades after 8 ECAE passes. The ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructures led to substantial enhancement in strength for both grades. The grade-2 sample showed a more than two fold increase in yield strength (y), from 307MPa for the as-received one to about 620MPa for the processed samples. The grade-4 CP-Ti exhibited a relatively smaller increase in strength due to the higher processing temperature, and it showed about 50% increase in y after eight pass ECAE, from 531 to 758MPa. These strength levels were obtained with high ductility levels of 21% and 25% for UFG grade-2 and grade-4 Ti, respectively. These improvements in mechanical properties are attributed to the substantially refined grain size and increased dislocation density. Grade-4 Ti is stronger than grade-2 because of the higher oxygen content. The higher ductility and significantly higher strain hardening capability of UFG grade-4 Ti, in spite of the similar grain size and microstructure with UFG grade-2 Ti, is also due to the higher impurity content, probably resulting in a higher dislocation storage capability during room temperature deformation, and thus, higher strain hardening capacity. Such properties make UFG grade-4 Ti comparable to the commercial Ti-6Al-4V alloy for biomedical applications without negative effects of the alloying elements on biocompatibility. 2010 Elsevier B.V.

published proceedings

  • MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING A-STRUCTURAL MATERIALS PROPERTIES MICROSTRUCTURE AND PROCESSING

author list (cited authors)

  • Purcek, G., Yapici, G. G., Karaman, I., & Maier, H. J.

citation count

  • 67

complete list of authors

  • Purcek, G||Yapici, GG||Karaman, I||Maier, HJ

publication date

  • March 2011