Advanced Mechanical Properties of a Powder Metallurgy Ti-Al-N Alloy Doped with Ultrahigh Nitrogen Concentration

Titanium and its alloys are recognized for their attractive properties. However, high-performance Ti alloys are often alloyed with rare or noble-metal elements. In the present study, Ti alloys doped with only ubiquitous elements were produced via powder metallurgy. The experimental results showed that pure Ti with 1.5 wt.% AlN incorporated exhibited excellent tensile properties, superior to similarly extruded Ti-6Al-4V. Further analysis revealed that its remarkably advanced strength could primarily be attributed to nitrogen solid-solution strengthening, accounting for nearly 80% of the strength increase of the material. In addition, despite the ultrahigh nitrogen concentration up to 0.809 wt.%, the Ti-1.5AlN sample showed elongation to failure of ~ 10%. This result exceeds the well-known limitation for nitrogen (over 0.45 wt.%) that causes embrittlement of Ti alloys.