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titanium alloys strong and ductileChong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Guo, B.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhao, G.*; Yoshida, Shuhei*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Godfrey, A.*; Tsuji, Nobuhiro*
Acta Materialia, 257, p.119165_1 - 119165_14, 2023/09
Times Cited Count：20 Percentile：97.34(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Metastable titanium alloys possess excellent strain-hardening capability, but suffer from a low yield strength. As a result, numerous attempts have been made to strengthen this important structural material in the last decade. Here, we explore the contributions of grain refinement and interstitial additions in raising the yield strength of a Ti-12Mo (wt.%) metastable titanium alloy. Surprisingly, rather than strengthening the material, grain refinement actually lowers the ultimate tensile strength in this alloy. This unexpected and anomalous behavior is attributed to a significant enhancement in strain-induced 
martensite phase transformation, where in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction analysis reveals, for the first time, that this phase is much softer than the parent phase. Instead, a combination of both oxygen addition and grain refinement is found to realize an unprecedented strength-ductility synergy in a Ti-12Mo-0.3O (wt.%) alloy. The advantageous effect of oxygen solutes in this ternary alloy is twofold. Firstly, solute oxygen largely suppresses strain-induced transformation to the martensite phase, even in a fine-grained microstructure, thus avoiding the softening effect of excessive amounts of martensite. Secondly, oxygen solutes readily segregate to twin boundaries, as revealed by atom probe tomography. This restricts the growth of 
deformation twins, thereby promoting more extensive twin nucleation, leading to enhanced microstructural refinement. The insights from our work provide a cost-effective rationale for the design of strong yet tough metastable titanium alloys, with significant implications for more widespread use of this high strength-to-weight structural material.
Chong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhang, R.*; Inoue, Koji*; Gao, W.*; Godfrey, A.*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Morris, J. W. Jr.*; Minor, A. M.*; et al.
Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.404_1 - 404_11, 2023/02
Times Cited Count：22 Percentile：94.77(Multidisciplinary Sciences)Interstitial oxygen embrittles titanium, particularly at cryogenic temperatures, which necessitates a stringent control of oxygen content in fabricating titanium and its alloys. Here, we propose a structural strategy, via grain refinement, to alleviate this problem. Compared to a coarse-grained counterpart that is extremely brittle at 77K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size 
2.0 
m) in Ti-0.3wt.%O was successfully increased by an order of magnitude, maintaining an ultrahigh yield strength inherent to the UFG microstructure. This unique strength-ductility synergy in UFG Ti-0.3wt.%O was achieved via the combined effects of diluted grain boundary segregation of oxygen that helps to improve the grain boundary cohesive energy and enhanced 
dislocation activities that contribute to the excellent strain hardening ability. The present strategy could not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but could also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility.
phase to phase in zirconium alloy revealed by in-situ neutron diffraction during high temperature deformationGuo, B.*; Mao, W.; Chong, Y.*; Shibata, Akinobu*; Harjo, S.; Gong, W.; Chen, H.*; Jonas, J. J.*; Tsuji, Nobuhiro*
Acta Materialia, 242, p.118427_1 - 118427_11, 2023/01
Times Cited Count：11 Percentile：74.03(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)Chong, Y.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Guo, B.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Inoue, Koji*; Tsuji, Nobuhiro*
Acta Materialia, 240, p.118356_1 - 118356_15, 2022/11
Times Cited Count：26 Percentile：93.22(Materials Science, Multidisciplinary)In this study, we systematically investigated the influences of nitrogen content and grain size on the tensile properties and deformation behaviors of titanium at room temperature. By high-pressure torsion and annealing, we obtained ultrafine-grained (UFG) Ti-0.3wt.%N alloy with a fully recrystallized microstructure, which combined an unprecedented synergy of ultrahigh yield strength (1.04 GPa) and large uniform elongation (10%). The hardening and strain-hardening mechanisms of Ti-0.3wt.%N alloy were comprehensively studied via deformation substructure observation and first-principles calculations. It is revealed that the contributions of nitrogen to the excellent strength/ductility balance in UFG Ti-0.3wt.%N were twofold. On one hand, nitrogen atoms inside the grains strongly impeded the motion of 
dislocations on prismatic plane due the shuffling of nitrogen from octahedral to hexahedral site, giving rise to a six-fold increase in the friction stress than pure Ti. Moreover, the greatly reduced stacking fault energy difference between prismatic and pyramidal planes in Ti-0.3wt.%N alloy facilitated an easier activation of dislocations, which contributed to an enhanced strain-hardening rate. On the other hand, some nitrogen atoms segregated near the grain boundaries, a phenomenon discovered in -titanium for the first time. These segregated nitrogen atoms served as an additional contributor to the yield strength of UFG Ti-0.3wt.%N, by raising the barrier against dislocation slip transfer between grains. Our experimental and theoretical calculation work provide insights for the design of affordable high strength titanium without a large sacrifice of ductility, shedding lights on a more widespread use of this high strength to weight material.
