TY - JOUR
T1 - Grain refinement in titanium prevents low temperature oxygen embrittlement
AU - Chong, Yan
AU - Gholizadeh, Reza
AU - Tsuru, Tomohito
AU - Zhang, Ruopeng
AU - Inoue, Koji
AU - Gao, Wenqiang
AU - Godfrey, Andy
AU - Mitsuhara, Masatoshi
AU - Morris, J. W.
AU - Minor, Andrew M.
AU - Tsuji, Nobuhiro
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors on Japan side would like to acknowledge the financial support from Elements Strategy Initiative for Structural Materials (ESISM, No. JPMXP0112101000) in Kyoto University, JST CREST (JPMJCR1994), and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. JP15H05767, JP18H05455, JP18H05456 and JP20H00306) supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. T.T. acknowledges the support of JST PRESTO Grant Number JPMJPR1998 and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers. JP19K04993). Simulations were performed on the large-scale parallel computer system with HPE SGI 8600 at JAEA. N.T. appreciates to the support from the Light Metal Educational Foundation, Japan. J.W.M and A.M.M are grateful to the funding from the US Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-19-1-2376. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.The support on TEM experiments from Kenji Kazumi and Nobuharu Sasaki of Kyoto University is also appreciated.
Funding Information:
The authors on Japan side would like to acknowledge the financial support from Elements Strategy Initiative for Structural Materials (ESISM, No. JPMXP0112101000) in Kyoto University, JST CREST (JPMJCR1994), and the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. JP15H05767, JP18H05455, JP18H05456 and JP20H00306) supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. T.T. acknowledges the support of JST PRESTO Grant Number JPMJPR1998 and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers. JP19K04993). Simulations were performed on the large-scale parallel computer system with HPE SGI 8600 at JAEA. N.T. appreciates to the support from the Light Metal Educational Foundation, Japan. J.W.M and A.M.M are grateful to the funding from the US Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-19-1-2376. Work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.The support on TEM experiments from Kenji Kazumi and Nobuharu Sasaki of Kyoto University is also appreciated.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - 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 77 K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size ~ 2.0 µm) in Ti-0.3wt.%O is 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 is 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 will not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but can also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility.
AB - 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 77 K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size ~ 2.0 µm) in Ti-0.3wt.%O is 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 is 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 will not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but can also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-023-36030-0
DO - 10.1038/s41467-023-36030-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 36725856
AN - SCOPUS:85147235090
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 14
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 404
ER -