High temperature internal friction in a Ti–46Al–1Mo–0.2Si intermetallic, comparison with creep behaviour

Advanced gamma-TiAl based intermetallics Mo-bearing have been developed to obtain the fine-grained microstructure required for superplastic deformation to be used during further processing. In the present work we have studied an alloy of Ti-46.8Al-1Mo-0.2Si (at%) with two different microstructures, ascast material with a coarse grain size above 300 mu m, and the hot extruded material exhibiting a grain size smaller than 20 mu m. We have used a mechanical spectrometer especially developed for high temperature internal friction measurements to study the defect mobility processes taking place at high temperature. The internal friction spectra at different frequencies has been studied and analyzed up to 1360 K in order to characterize the relaxation processes appearing in this temperature range. A relaxation peak, with a maximum in between 900 K and 1080 K, depending on the oscillating frequency, has been attributed to Ti-atoms diffusion by the stress-induced reorientation of Al-V-Ti-Al elastic dipoles. The high temperature background in both microstructural states, as-cast and extruded, has been analyzed, measuring the apparent activation parameters, in particular the apparent energies of E-cast(IF) = 4.4 +/- 0.05 eV and E-ext(IF) = 4.75 +/- 0.05 eV respectively. These results have been compared to those obtained on the same materials by creep deformation. We may conclude that the activation parameters obtained by internal friction analysis, are consistent with the ones measured by creep. Furthermore, the analysis of the high temperature background allows establish the difference on creep resistance for both microstructural states. (c) 2015 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd.