Spinodal decomposition coupled with a continuous crystal ordering in a titanium alloy

Spinodal decomposition mechanism is well-known for producing nanoscale modulated microstructure which is either sponge-like or plate-like. Our recent investigations of a Ti-Nb based titanium alloy have found two kinds of decomposition-induced transitions triggered simultaneously, a microstructural transition from the spongy-like to the plate-like and a crystal structure transition from bcc to hcp via the coupled atomic shear and shuffle mechanism along the Burgers pathway. Here focuses on thermal evolution kinetics of both transitions and their quantitative relations. Small angle neutron scattering profiles reveal that the aging treatments lead to a gradual change from an oval pattern to a butterfly pattern due to the spongy-to-plate microstructural transition. To characterize the crystal transition and its induced habit plane change, we define an ordering parameter from the shear component of the bcc-hcp transition. The results reveal that both follow the well-known power-law approximation with an activation energy of ∼209 kJ/mol, which is identical with diffusion energy of Nb in binary Ti-Nb alloy. However, their time exponential factors are different, about 1/5 for the microstructure growth and 1/16 for the crystal ordering and its induced habit plane change. The former is less than the common 1/3 law of the decomposition mechanism and the nucleation and growth mechanism. Aided by these kinetic equations, the microstructural and chemical parameters can be modeled by the crystal ordering. This provides a new strategy to tune the nanoscale microstructure by this novel spinodal decomposition coupled with a continuous crystal ordering.