Temperature Effects of ECAP and Annealing after ECAP on Microstructure of TA15 Alloy

A study was conducted by optical microscope (OM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) on the microstructure evolution of TA15 alloy by severe plastic deformation (SPD) and annealing after SPD. In this study, equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was taken as the method of SPD. The chief aim of the present work is to investigate the temperature effects of ECAP and annealing after ECAP on microstructure of TA15 alloy. The results indicate that equiaxed microstructure has been obtained by ECAP at the temperatures of α+β phase region, and that with the increase in pressing temperature, equiaxed grains have become coarser and the content of α phase has reduced. β grains have been coarsened severely since the pressing temperature was above the α-β transformation temperature (Tβ). Annealed at proper temperature after ECAP, the α phase of TA15 alloy has been more homogeneous, prior α phase has been well globularized, and grains have not grown obviously. According to the testing of TA15 alloy, the optimized temperature parameters of ECAP and annealing after ECAP are 900°C and 700°C. Observation and Analysis of the TEM morphological images illustrate that a quantity of twinning deformations have been produced by ECAP at the temperatures below Tβ, which leads to the continued plastic deformation through the restarting of many slip bands.