Improvement of Mechanical Properties for a Novel Zr–Ti–V Alloy via Hot-Rolling and Annealing Treatment

Abstract

In this experiment, an annealing treatment was carried out for a rolled Zr–Ti–8V alloy, and the toughening mechanism of the material was thoroughly analyzed by combining advanced material characterization and other testing methods. The phase composition of the Zr–Ti–8V alloy was sensitive to the applied annealing temperature, while a series of changes in the phase composition of the alloy were induced by enforcing bigger thermal budgets. Implementing a temperature value of 450 °C led to a higher α-phase content, in striking contrast with the case where a lower annealing temperature of 400 °C was applied. The β grains that were stretched in the alloy’s rolling direction and annealed at 600 °C to 800 °C were recrystallized. As a result, the acquired configuration was equiaxed with β grains. The extracted results revealed that the alloy annealed at 450 °C showed a good strong–plastic ratio, with tensile strength and elongation of 1040 MPa and 8.2%, respectively. In addition, the alloy annealed at 700–800 °C showed good plasticity properties. From the hardness tests and friction wear experiments on all the experimental alloys, it was demonstrated that the dual-phase alloy with α + β had higher hardness and wear resistance, whereas the opposite trend was observed for the single β-phase alloy.

Advances in Zr-Based Alloys

“…Al addition leads to grain size reduction and a Zr5Co7Al3 intermetallic precipitation, and the best combination of mechanical properties (UTS and UFS of 464 MPa and 3.4%, respectively) was achieved for Zr47.5Co47.5Al5 which demonstrated strong synergistic effects of fine grain strengthening, the solid-solution-strengthening of Al elements, and secondary-phase precipitation strengthening. Liu et al [30] improved the mechanical properties of the new Zr-Ti-8V alloy through hot-rolling and Mechanical properties are one of the basic performance requirements of Zr alloys as a structural material, and the alloying [21][22][23][24][25][26] and processing [21,[26][27][28] (including rolling, heat treatment, etc.) of Zr are extremely effective methods for modulating the material's microstructure and improving its mechanical properties.…”

“…Al addition leads to grain size reduction and a Zr 5 Co 7 Al 3 intermetallic precipitation, and the best combination of mechanical properties (UTS and UFS of 464 MPa and 3.4%, respectively) was achieved for Zr 47.5 Co 47.5 Al 5 which demonstrated strong synergistic effects of fine grain strengthening, the solid-solution-strengthening of Al elements, and secondary-phase precipitation strengthening. Liu et al [30] improved the mechanical properties of the new Zr-Ti-8V alloy through hot-rolling and annealing treatments and examined the effects of annealing temperatures. The phase composition and mechanical properties of the rolled Zr-Ti-8V were sensitive to the annealing temperature, i.e., many more fine needle-like α phases were precipitated after annealing at 450 • C and the alloy exhibited the best strength-plastic ratio (1039 MPa, 8.2%).…”