Mechanical properties of pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloys with a new tailored nano/meso hybrid microstructure

Abstract Pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy powders are treated by a mechanical milling process, which is one of the severe plastic deformation processes. The mechanical milling enables to produce a nano-grain microstructure very easily and has been applied to many powder materials. The bimodal microstructure in those mechanically milled powders is composed of a nano-grain structure with a grain size of about 50 nm in the surface-near region and of a work-hardened microstructure in the core region of the powder. We applied the hot roll sintering process to pure titanium and to Ti-6Al-4V mechanically milled powders. These compacts have a hybrid microstructure that consists of nano-grain structure with grain sizes of 200 to 500 nm and a micron size meso-grain structure. The hybrid microstructure materials demonstrate enhanced mechanical properties compared to conventional materials.