Effect of hot-forging on beta phase transformation of a high niobium containing titanium aluminide alloy

In this paper, ingot breakdown process of a high Nb containing TiAl alloy with a chemical composition of Ti-42.63Al-8.11Nb-0.21W-0.09Y (at.%) has been investigated under conventional forging conditions. It was found that the present alloy possesses superior hot-workability that can be successfully forged by conventional upsetting route due to the appearance of large amount of β/B2 phase, though shear band was observed in the forged-pancake. Further studies revealed that hot-working performed in (α + β) phase region which can effectively impede the β → α transformation and thus significantly increase the volume fraction of β/B2 phase. In contrast, the amount of β/B2 phase was notably reduced by heat treatment at the same conditions. This stress-induced effect is considered to be responsible to the superior hot-workability of the present alloy and the mechanism has been discussed and reasonably clarified. It was also suggested that the stress-induced effect has practical significance that it allows the implementation of conventional multi-step forging process which can develop fine and uniform microstructures suitable for secondary processing.