Effect of Process Variables on Transformation-Texture Development in Ti-6Al-4V Sheet Following Beta Heat Treatment

The effect of preheat time, prestrain, cooling rate, and concurrent deformation during cooling on the preferential selection of hcp alpha variants during the decomposition of the high-temperature, bcc beta phase in two-phase titanium alloys was established using Ti-6Al-4V sheet material. For this purpose, sheet tension samples were pre-soaked in the beta phase field for 0 or 10 minutes (to vary the beta grain size), subjected to a prestrain of 0 or 0.1, and cooled at a rate of 11 or 155 K/min (11 or 155 °C/min) under conditions comprising free ends, fixed ends, or concurrent deformation at a strain rate between ~10−5 and 3 × 10−4 s−1. Electron-backscatter diffraction was used to determine the orientations of the alpha variants so formed, from which the underlying high-temperature, beta-grain microstructure and orientations were reconstructed. These measurements revealed that the parent beta texture changed due to grain growth during preheating. A comparison of the alpha- and beta-phase textures indicated that preferential variant selection was most noticeable under conditions involving a slow cooling rate especially when prestrain or concurrent straining was imposed.