Thermo-hydrogen refinement of microstructure of titanium materials
AssigneeUniversity of Utah Research Foundation
InventorsJames D. Paramore, Brady G. Butler, Matthew K. Dunstan, Jonathan P. Ligda, Zhigang Z. Fang
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Abstract
A method of modifying a microstructure of a titanium material can include providing a solid titanium material in an inert atmosphere, where the solid titanium material has an initial microstructure with an initial grain size and which is optionally anisotropic. The method can also include introducing hydrogen through a thermal process into the solid titanium material, resulting in a titanium alloy article having a refined microstructure that has a final grain size that is smaller than the initial grain size, or reduced anisotropy, or a combination thereof.
Claims30
A method of modifying a microstructure of a titanium material, said method comprising:
- providing a solid titanium material in an inert atmosphere, said solid titanium material having an initial microstructure with an initial grain size and which is optionally anisotropic;
- and
- introducing hydrogen through a thermal process into said solid titanium material, resulting in a titanium alloy article having a refined microstructure that has a final grain size that is smaller than the initial grain size, or reduced anisotropy, or a combination thereof.
A method of modifying the microstructure of a titanium material, said method comprising:
- providing a solid titanium material in an inert atmosphere,
- introducing hydrogen into said solid titanium material in a dynamically controlled hydrogen-containing atmosphere, wherein a pressure or a partial pressure of hydrogen can be controlled independently of any hydrogen that may be produced from the evolution of hydrogen gas from hydrogenated titanium,
- subjecting said solid titanium material to a hydrogen charging temperature above the β transus temperature of the solid titanium material and below a melting temperature of the solid titanium material and holding for a hydrogen charging time to form β phase regions in the titanium material;
- and
- cooling the titanium material to a phase transformation temperature below the β transus temperature, and holding at the phase transformation temperature for a phase transformation time to form α phase regions in the titanium material thereby producing a transformed titanium material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.