Creep of titanium--silicon alloys

Operative creep mechanisms in laboratory melts of Ti-5Zr-0.5Si and Ti-5Zr-0.5Si have been investigated as a function of microstructure, creep stress, and temperature. From creep rate data and transmission electron microscopy results, it has been shown that an important creep strengthening mechanism at 8110K in Si-bearing Ti alloys is clustering of solute atoms on dislocations. All of the alloys investigated showed anomalously high apparent activation energies and areas for creep and a high exponent (n) in the Dorn equation. In addition, the effect of heat treatment was investigated and it is shown that the highest creep strength was obtained by using a heat treatment which retained the maximum amount of silicon in solution. This is consistent with the proposed creep strengthening mechanism. An investigation of the creep behavior of several other Si containing alloys including two commercial alloys, Ti-11 and IMI-685 indicated similar results. 12 fig., 6 tables