What is the heat treatment process for titanium alloy plates?

Common heat treatment methods include annealing, solution treatment, and aging treatment. Annealing is aimed at eliminating internal stress, improving plasticity, and stabilizing the microstructure to achieve better overall performance. Generally, the annealing temperature for α alloys and (α+β) alloys is selected to be 120-200°C below the (α+β)→β phase transformation point; solution treatment and aging involve rapid cooling from a high-temperature zone to obtain martensitic α′ phase and metastable β phase, followed by holding at a medium temperature to allow these metastable phases to precipitate, resulting in fine dispersed second phase particles such as α phase or compounds, achieving the goal of strengthening the alloy. Typically, the quenching of (α+β) alloys is performed at 40-100°C below the (α+β)→β phase transformation point, while metastable β alloys are quenched at 40-80°C above the (α+β)→β phase transformation point. The aging treatment temperature is generally 450-550°C. In summary, the heat treatment processes for titanium alloys can be categorized as: (1) Stress relief annealing: The goal is to eliminate or reduce residual stresses generated during processing, preventing chemical corrosion in certain corrosive environments and reducing deformation. (2) Full annealing: The aim is to achieve good toughness, improve processing performance, facilitate reprocessing, and enhance dimensional and microstructural stability. (3) Solution treatment and aging: The purpose is to increase strength; α titanium alloys and stable β titanium alloys cannot undergo strengthening heat treatment and are only subjected to annealing in production. (α+β) titanium alloys and metastable β titanium alloys containing a small amount of α phase can be further strengthened through solution treatment and aging. Additionally, to meet the special requirements of workpieces, various metal heat treatment processes such as double-layer annealing, isothermal annealing, β heat treatment, and deformation heat treatment are also used in industry.

07-24

2019

Introduction to the performance of titanium alloy corrosion resistance

Titanium alloy is a highly reactive material, and titanium has good corrosion resistance in many corrosive media. As long as there is sufficient oxygen, even if the film is mechanically damaged, the film itself can immediately self-heal or regenerate. (1) The corrosion resistance of titanium is influenced by the surface oxide film, making this material more suitable for use in oxidative environments or places where oxygen is readily available. In reducing solutions, titanium will react with the solution to produce hydrogen gas. (2) Like all metals, when titanium comes into direct contact with different metals in an electrolyte, it will form a galvanic couple. After the galvanic couple is formed, the corrosion rate of one or both metals is much faster than before the couple was formed. In almost all cases, titanium is the more inert electrode of the galvanic couple, which increases the corrosion of the other metal. The degree of corrosion depends on the relative area ratio and the actual electrolyte used, so galvanic couple formation should be avoided when designing equipment. Titanium alloys (3) are generally only used in situations where the corrosion rate is very slow, so there is no need to provide corrosion tolerance when designing equipment. This allows for the use of thinner titanium plates for carbon-titanium containers, heat exchanger end boxes and tube sheets, pumps, valves, and other linings. Thin titanium tubes can also be used for tubular heat exchangers and thin titanium plates for plate heat exchangers to reduce equipment costs and improve heat exchange performance. Since the passivity of titanium depends on the presence of the oxide film, its corrosion resistance in oxidative solutions is significantly better than in non-oxidative solutions. Titanium can corrode at a higher rate in non-oxidative media. Therefore, titanium can be used in various concentrations of aqueous nitric acid below its boiling point. Similarly, it does not corrode in wet chlorine gas. In chloride solutions, such as sodium chloride and hypochlorite solutions, it also does not corrode. The oxide protective film on the surface of titanium is usually formed in contact with water; even a small amount of water or water vapor can generate the protective film. Therefore, if titanium is exposed to a completely anhydrous high-strength oxidative environment, rapid oxidation can occur, often leading to combustion. This phenomenon can occur in reactions between titanium and dry nitric acid and between titanium and dry chlorine gas. However, in such cases, as long as there is a minimal amount of moisture (even just 50 ppm), this corrosion can be avoided. There is no evidence that titanium produces pitting or stress corrosion in aqueous solutions of inorganic metal chlorides. In seawater, even under high-speed scouring, titanium also exhibits good corrosion resistance. Although it is reasonable to expect that titanium alloys would undergo significant corrosion in media such as sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid, resulting in the generation of hydrogen gas, as long as there are small amounts of oxidizers present in the acid, a passivation film can form on the surface of titanium. Therefore, titanium exhibits corrosion resistance in mixed solutions of strong sulfuric and nitric acids, in mixed solutions of hydrochloric and nitric acids, and even in strong hydrochloric acid containing free chlorine gas. The presence of copper ions or iron ions in the solution can also reduce the corrosion rate of titanium, which is equivalent to alloying with precious metals or using anodic passivation techniques.

07-24

2019

< 1 >