Low-temperature superplastic deformation mechanism of ultra-fine grain Ti–6Al–4V alloy by friction stir processing

The ultra-fine grain Ti-6Al-4V alloy sheet was successfully achieved by friction stir processing (FSP). The low-temperature superplastic deformation mechanism of Ti-6Al-4V alloy under the strain rate of 3 × 10-4 s-1 at 600 °C was studied by scanning electron microscope, electron backscatter diffraction and superplastic tensile test. It is found that the grain size of Ti-6Al-4V alloy by FSP is refined from 7.48 μm to 0.82 μm, and there is no preferential crystallographic orientation of the uniform grain. After FSP, the β phase of the base material (BM) in the grain boundary is refined and homogenized. During the superplastic tensile processing, with the increase of strain, the grain is refined continuously, and the α→β phase transition is induced by the dislocations pile-up at the β grain boundary, and the content of β phase increases. The grain near the fracture was refined to 0.35 μm, and the stress concentration led to the formation of cavities near the β phase, which eventually caused the fracture. The dynamic recrystallization in superplastic tensile processing is mainly geometric dynamic recrystallization and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization. The elongation of superplastic tensile (1033%) is 19.7 times higher than that of BM (50%). The order of superplastic deformation mechanism in the low-temperature superplastic deformation of the ultra-fine grain Ti-6Al-4V alloy sheet is as follows: intragranular dislocation slip and diffusion, grain boundary sliding, and phase boundary sliding. Phase boundary sliding is the main deformation mechanism for low-temperature superplastic deformation.