Phase-Stability Dependence of Plastic Deformation Behavior in Ti-Nb-Ta-Zr-O Alloys

The authors investigated the effects of alloy content on mechanical properties to make clear a correlation between plastic deformation behavior and β-phase stability in Ti-Nb-Ta-Zr-O alloys. It was realized that there was specific compositional area in which the alloy exhibited little work hardening and minimum Young’s modulus value. The specific area was expressed by the bond order (Bo), based on theDV-Xα method, of 2.87 and the averaged electron/atom ratio (e/a) of 4.24, which corresponded to those of a multifunctional β titanium alloy, “Gum Metal.” These electronic conditions also minimized ideal strength required for plastic deformation without any dislocation activity. The deformation behavior of alloys in the specific compositional area revealed that the unique behavior could be characterized by a “giant fault.” It was also confirmed that such a compositional area corresponded to the phase boundary between the α″ martensite and β phases at room temperature.