Effect of pre-strain temperature on the subsequent dynamic recrystallization of parent β phase and transformed α-variant selection in a novel near α titanium alloy

Abstract The microstructure and micro-orientation evolution of a novel high-temperature titanium alloy were characterized during a two-step deformation process. In the first step, the specimens were deformed at temperatures of 800, 850, 900 and 950 °C, and subsequently deformed in the same β-phase region of 1050 °C. The specimens pre-strained at 800 °C and 950 °C were fully recrystallized during the β-phase deformation process. By contrast, the specimens pre-strained at 850 and 900 °C were not fully recrystallized during the β-phase deformation process. This indicates that the extent of dynamic recrystallization did not increased monotonically with the pre-strain temperature. The extent of dynamic recrystallization was related to the stored energy accumulated in the α and β-phase during the pre-strain deformation. The change in stored energy was based on the difference in microstructure morphology produced by different pre-deformation temperatures,and stored energy was quantitatively estimated based on the local misorientation distribution. Meanwhile, the generation of dynamically recrystallized grains was beneficial to decreasing the generation possibility of the macro-zone. This decrease was attributed to the refinement of β-grains and randomly distributed orientation, which was also related to the decrease in the typically distributed “two parallel wings” orientation between the α and β phase induced by uncrystallized deformation. Additionally, the two-step deformation process with the pre-strain at the (α + β) middle regime was an effective strategy to promote the dynamic recrystallization and decrease the generation probability of the macro-zone.