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Yttria is the best face coat material in the shell mold for the investment casting of γ-TiAl alloys. However, yttria inclusions may occur in the cast products and there is a lack of knowledge about the influence of yttria inclusions on the mechanical properties of TiAl. In the present study, the effect of yttria inclusions on room temperature tensile properties of two investment cast TiAl alloys, Ti-45Al-2Mn-2Nb (at%) + 0.08 vol% TiB2 and Ti-46 Al-2 Nb-2Cr-0.15B (at%), were studied. The results show that tensile failure tends to initiate from yttria inclusions, resulting in reduced plastic strain and ultimate strength. Yttria inclusions differ in location (surface /internal), size, and morphology (agglomerate /whole piece), those with larger sizes or located at the sample surface being more harmful. The tensile properties of inclusion containing TiAl parts can be estimated using the size and location determined by X-ray inspection. The critical size at which inclusions become detrimental to the mechanical properties of TiAl was discussed.

Borides have been widely used in cast TiAl alloy for grain refinement and a variety of stoichiometry and crystal structure of borides were reported. Here the effects of alloying elements Nb, Ta, and Mn on the structural stability of fine boride precipitates in TiAl alloys have been studied combining transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and first-principles calculations. The results show that most boride particles have the TiB stoichiometry. In the alloy containing Nb and Mn, all the TiB particles have the B27 structure and are highly enriched with Nb but depleted with Mn. In the alloy containing Nb and Ta, however, the intergrowth of B f and B27 structure has been observed, and the TiB particles are enriched with both Nb and Ta. First-principles calculations reveal different effects of Nb, Ta, and Mn on the structural stability of TiB polymorphs. Nb stabilizes B27 but destabilizes B f . Ta strongly stabilizes both B27 and B f structures. Mn strongly destabilizes both B27 and B f structures.

Casting of titanium based alloys presents considerable problems including the extensive interactions that occur between the metal and refractory. An investigation was undertaken to develop a zirconia facecoat suitable to replace current zircon/silica facecoat used in investment casting titanium aluminide alloys. The stability of the zirconia slurry was assessed using pH, viscosity and plate weight, and the mould properties such as friability, strength and permeability were measured. The interaction between the zirconia face coat and a Ti–46Al–8Nb–1B alloy was studied by centrifugal investment casting at three mould pre-heating temperatures. Computer simulation of metal cooling profiles during casting was also carried out to assist the analysis. In this work, a stable zirconia slurry was developed, and the moulds produced using a zirconia facecoat have comparable mechanical properties and better permeability than those made of the traditional zircon/silica facecoat. The friability of the zirconia facecoat was much improved in comparison to that made of yttria face coat. During casting, metal non-fill defects were presented at a low preheat mould temperature of 500 °C. The interaction products found between the metal and mould included a combined (Ti, Zr) 5 (Si, Al) 3 and ZrAl 2 phases, a re-precipitated ZrO 2 phase, and a Al 2 O 3 film at the interface. The interaction between mould and metal also caused a high hardness at the interface due to oxygen penetration, which varied with samples using different mould pre-heat temperatures. The suggestion has been made that the mould pre-heat temperature should be less than 1200 °C.

Textures of α2 and γ phases in Ti–47Al–2Cr–2Nb–0.15B (at.%) rectangular billet, extruded below its α transus temperature, were evaluated and their relation to the mechanical properties of TMTL microstructure was investigated. Strong α2 phase texture {11 2 ¯ 0} 1 ¯ 0> was found after extrusion and it evolved into {10 1 ¯ 0} 2 ¯ 0> recrystallization texture via oriented growth during α solution treatment. The α/α2 phase texture changes α grain growth behavior at Tα, such that it is slow at first but becomes rapid when the solution time exceeds a critical value, creating a new method of obtaining fine-grained TMTL microstructure. Mechanical properties of the TMTL microstructure were shown to be closely related to the Kearns texture factor of the α2 phase along the loading direction. The center and edge of as-extruded billet have distinct γ phase textures, dominated by β fiber (center) and featuring multiple texture components (edge), respectively. In the highly strained edge region, the presence of C-twin, Y, and Z texture components suggests the occurrence of mechanical twinning and shear band deformation, while B/G auxiliary component was found to act as a transition band from deformation to cubic recrystallization texture, in support of the oriented nucleation hypothesis for the formation of cubic texture.

Components which best utilise the properties of high temperature titanium alloys are characterised by thin sections of a few millimetres thickness and hundreds of millimetres length. These alloys however are difficult to work with, being highly reactive in a molten state, necessitating a low superheat during processing. Centrifugal casting is therefore utilised as a candidate production method, as under the centrifugal force, metal can rapidly fill thicknesses substantially less than a millimetre before it solidifies. However, due to the high liquid metal velocity developed there is a high risk of turbulent flow and of the trapping of any gas present within the liquid metal. This challenging application involves a combination of complex rotating geometries, significant centrifugal forces and high velocity transient free surface flows, coupled with simultaneous heat transfer and solidification. Capturing these interacting physical phenomena, free surface flows, trapped air and associated defects is a complex modelling task. Building upon earlier work on computational modelling the authors have previously described to capture and validate the fluid dynamics behaviour of rotating systems, this contribution considers the modelling and validation of such systems to capture the coupled flow and thermal solidification behaviour and associated defect development. A bench-mark test case is employed to validate the effect of solidification on the fluidity of an aluminium alloy. Validation is also performed against a series of casting experiments to establish the models ability to capture the filling process and predict defects due to air entrapment within the solidified metal.

The sintering behaviour of conventional yttria powder was investigated, with emphasis on the effect of sintering additives such as B2O3, YF3, Al2O3, ZrO2, and TiO2, etc. at sintering temperatures from 1000 °C to 1600 °C. Powder shrinkage behaviour was analysed using a dilatometer. The powder sintering mechanisms were identified at different temperatures using powder isothermal shrinkage curves. This analysis showed that the sintering additives B2O3 and YF3 could improve yttria sintering by changing the diffusion/sintering mechanisms at certain temperatures, while sintering additives TiO2, Al2O3 and ZrO2 appeared to retard the powder densification at temperatures around 1000 °C and are more suitable when used at temperatures in excess of 1300 °C. The powder with La2O3 added had the slowest densification rate throughout the test temperatures in this experiment and was also found to be more suitable when used at temperatures higher than 1550 °C.

The investment casting process offers great freedom of design with the economic advantage of near net shape production and has been widely used to process TiAl alloys. An investigation was undertaken to develop stable and cheap refractory slurry systems, suitable for use as a face coat in the investment casting of titanium aluminides. A TiO2–Al2O3 (TiAlO) based face coat slurry was investigated and compared with a traditional yttria based face coat slurry. After sintering, the chemical inertness of the manufactured shells in contact with molten TiAl alloys was tested by simulating the casting process using a flash re-melting test, in which sample shells were in contact with titanium aluminides at given temperatures for varying time durations and subsequently re-solidified. Compared with yttria, the TiAlO face coat had relatively lower chemical inertness against molten alloys, forming a thick hardened layer at the metal/shell interface with massive interaction products along grain boundaries. The reaction also changed the wetting behaviour of the TiAl on the TiAlO face coat with the contact angle decreasing as a function of interaction time.

Centrifugal casting offers one potential route through to high quality products in difficult to cast high temperature low superheat alloys. The coupling of free surface flows and complex rotating geometries, results in significant centrifugal forces; combined with rapid heat transfer and solidification this yields a significant computational modelling challenge. The ultimate objective of the work reported here is to develop a comprehensive computational model of centrifugal casting that can reliably predict the macro-defects that arise from the process. This contribution describes the development of the computational model, enabling capture of the free surface detail of the flow during the filling stage of centrifugal casting in what are inevitably complex three dimensional geometries. The work reported here concentrates on resolving the fluid film formation, air entrainment within the turbulent gas-fluid interface and transport of gas bubbles through the mould. Validation of the above phenomena is a key issue and a series of water model experiments has been performed and recorded using high-speed video image capture. The objective is to validate and refine the computational model predictions using repeatable high quality experimental data, before application of the model in analysing full-scale centrifugal casting process. A number of key observations arise from this work, such as accurate prediction of the initial pour dynamics, maintaining a sharp fluid–air interface on complex meshes in order to capture the fluid film and air bubble behaviour, and employing higher order schemes to capture the vortex formation. These phenomena are not trivial to capture within the computational modelling tools, however, for the models to be useful in the analysing the full scale casting process, such physics must be reflected within their predictive capability.

The boundary region formed on the surface of nickel-based single-crystal turbine blades was investigated by high-resolution microscopy observation. There was a distinguishable intermediate layer with the size of about 2 to 5 μm between the matrix and surface defect grains such as stray grains, multiple grains, freckle grains, and even low-angle grain boundaries which were formed during the solidification of turbine blades. The intermediate layer was composed of many elongated γ′ as well as γ phases. In addition, only one side of the intermediate layer was coherent to the matrix grain or defect grain due to good orientation match. At the coherent interface, the γ′ (as well as γ) phase started to extend from the parent grain and coincidently, rhenium-rich particles were detected. Furthermore, the particles existed within both elongated gamma prime and gamma phases, and even at their boundary. Based on experimental observations, the formation mechanism of this intermediate layer was discussed.