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Hydrogen effects on brittle fracture of the titanium aluminide alloy Ti-24Al-11Nb

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Abstract

Varying amounts of hydrogen were dissolved in the titanium aluminide alloy Ti-24Al-llNb (atomic percent). Virtually all of this hydrogen probably precipitated as hydride on cooling because the terminal solubility in the dominant Ti3Al phase is very low at room temperature. Although the yield strength (YS) increased, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS), ductility, fracture stress in notched bend bars, and fracture toughness decreased with increasing amounts of hydride. The strength and fracture properties, for all hydride contents, did not change with testing speed below about 5 to 50 mm/min but decreased steeply for speeds greater than that. The presence of hydride decreased the critical value of testing speed by about an order of magnitude. Brittle cracks in bluntly notched bend bars, with or without hydride, nucleated at the notch root or at a distance below the root which was less than one fifth of the distance to the peak stress location. This result suggests that the cleavagelike cracking in this material is not controlled by normal stress alone but has some dependence on the applied strain. The fracture surfaces of notched or precracked specimens, with or without hydride, consisted entirely of cleavagelike fracture, but these cracks exhibited stable crack propagation. This permitted both the measurement of crack resistance or R curves and also observation of the initiation and propagation of the crack with increasing KI. The results showed that cracks initiated discontinuously at characteristic sites within the plastic zone and along the slip bands when the plastic deformation ahead of the precrack developed to a particular and reproducible extent. Literature cleavage models were compared to results for the present tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Physics, Beijing University of Science and Technology, 100083, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Wu-Yang Chu (Professor)

  2. Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 15213, Pittsburgh, PA

    Anthony W. Thompson (Professor)

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  1. Wu-Yang Chu
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WU-YANG CHU, Formerly Visiting Professor, Carnegie Mellon University,

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Chu, WY., Thompson, A.W. Hydrogen effects on brittle fracture of the titanium aluminide alloy Ti-24Al-11Nb. Metall Trans A 23, 1299–1312 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02665062

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