Non-Isothermal Oxidation Behavior and Mechanism of a High Temperature Near-α Titanium Alloy

Non-isothermal oxidation is one of the important issues related to the safe application of high-temperature titanium alloys, so this study focuses on the non-isothermal oxidation behavior and mechanism of near-α titanium alloys. The thermogravimetry-differential scanning calorimetry (TGA/DSC) method was used to study the non-isothermal oxidation behavior of TA29 titanium alloy heated from room temperature to 1450 °C at a heating rate of 40 °C/min under pure oxygen atmosphere. The results show that non-isothermal oxidation behavior can be divided into five stages, including no oxidation, slow oxidation, accelerated oxidation, severe oxidation and deceleration oxidation; for the three-layer TiO₂ scale, Zr, Nb, Ta are enriched in the intermediate layer, while Al is rich in the inner layer and Sn is segregated at the oxide-substrate interface, which is related to their diffusion rates in the subsurface α case. The oxidation mechanism for each stage is: oxygen barrier effect of a thin compact oxide film; oxygen dissolution; lattice transformation accelerating the dissolution and diffusion of oxygen; oxide formation; oxygen barrier effect of recrystallization and sintering microstructure in outer oxide scale. The alloying elements with high valence state and high diffusion rate in α-Ti are favorable to slow down the oxidation rate at the stage governed by oxide formation.