Electropulsing-Induced α to β Phase Transformation of Ti–6Al–4V

Abstract Electrically assisted forming (EAF) has been increasingly utilized as an effective auxiliary processing technology to improve the formability of hard-to-deform metals. Previous works have revealed that the phase transformation of titanium alloys subjected to electropulsing treatment (EPT) can occur at a lower temperature and in a remarkably shorter time compared with those subjected to the traditional heating treatment (THT). However, an in-depth experimental verification and further analysis is still missing so far. Therefore, to characterize the specific effects of EPT on α → β transformation process, both EPT and THT experiments were conducted on Ti–6Al–4V sheet specimens. After that, a calculation method based on the analysis of optical microscopic (OM) metallographs was developed to characterize the amount of phase transformation in EPT and THT. According to the results, it was found that the pulse current can significantly reduce the phase transus temperature and accelerate the transformation process in EPT compared with that in THT. Furthermore, the specific effects of EPT on transus temperature and phase transformation rate were investigated in detail. Based on that, the transformation kinetics of the electropulsing-induced α → β phase transformation was also analyzed using the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami model. It is revealed that the activation energies of both nucleation and growth of phase transformation are reduced by electric current. Hence, the phase transformation can start at a lower temperature and with a higher rate in EPT. The mechanism behind the effects was also discussed in detail in the present work.