Titanium aluminides and precision cast articles made therefrom

Abstract: A titanium aluminide is composed of 31 to 34 mass% of Al, 1.5 to 3.0 mass % of Fe, 0.5 to 2.0 mass % of V, 0.18 to 0.35 mass % of B with remainder being Ti and inevitable impurities. The 0.5 to 2.0 mass % of V may be replaced with a 1.0 to 3.0 mass % of Mo or a 0.3 to 1.5 mass % of Cr. By precision casting this alloy, can be obtained a novel titanium aluminide alloy in which numerous whisker-like Ti-B compound are uniformly dispersed. The titanium aluminide alloy does not possess coarse lamellar structure which would cause crackings.

Description: The present invention relates to titanium aluminide, i.e., an intermetallic compound known by a chemical formula of TiAl, as an advanced material for precision casting. It relates in particular to that species of titanium aluminide whose fluidity is excellent, the precision cast articles made therefrom will have a high strength as cast state and will not crack even when their thickness is small. Titanium aluminide (this substance will be referred to as "TiAl" hereinafter) is drawing attention for its higher specific strength at high temperature than those of the nickel-base superalloys and better oxidation resistance than those of the titanium alloys. Since TiAl has other admirable properties in addition such as low density, the strength which becomes greater with elevating temperature and good creep resistance, there are demands to make aircraft jet engine parts such as blades and vanes out of this material in the form of thin and intricately configured precision cast articles. On the other hand, however, TiAl is known to have a low ductility at ambient temperature and have a strong dependency on the deforming speed even at high temperatures where sufficient toughness develops. To overcome these difficulties, researches are being conducted from crystal structural and physical metallurgical viewpoints. For example, methods of improving the low ductility by strengthening the grain boundaries have been proposed in US-A-4,294,615 and in JP-A-1298127 (Patent Abstracts of Japan, vol. 14, no. 80 (C-689) [4023] February 15, 1990). From this citation, a light-weight heat-resisting alloy is known, containing by weight 30 - 36% Al, one or more kinds among 0.01 to 0.5% B, C and Si, and 0.1 to 8% V and the balance consisting of Ti. This results in an Al-to-Ti mass % content ratio from 0.44 to 0.61. With such a composition, the cold ductility of the alloy is to be improved without impairing the excellent high temperature strength of TiAl. Despite these efforts, however, the reality is that precision cast articles made of binary Ti-Al alloy remain so liable to cracking that they cannot be called an industrial product. Even with addition of a third element, e.g., V, which the above-mentioned US Patent has found effective to improve a ductility, ternary Ti-Al-V alloys containing appreciable amounts of the third element, e.g., V as much as 1.5 mass %, cannot make castings, such as turbine vanes, perfectly crack-free. Furthermore, even while above-cited Japanese patent application claims to produce TiAl cast articles having strengths surpassing those mentioned in the specification of US-A- 4,294,615, the strengths achieved at ambient temperature are in the 400 MPa level; even with addition of strength improving element strengths over 500 MPa have not been realized. For another thing, there is an observation that the poor toughness of TiAl should be considered as due, on top of the inherent brittleness of this material arising from its being an intermetallic compound, to the coarse lamellar grains that characterize its microstructure. Here, it is to be noted that the stoichiometric titanium aluminide, i.e., the one that corresponds to an Al content of 36 mass %, does not develop the lamellar structure, but this material has a lower ductility than a lamellar structured TiAl. With these so-called industrial TiAl alloys, which are generally of an Al content of 32 to 34 mass % because of the addition of property-modifying element of one sort or another, on the other hand, development of the lamellar structure has been considered inevitable. As a countermeasure thereto, a proposal has been made to add B or Y so as to strengthen the lamellar grain boundaries. Even then, however, attainment of acceptably low rates of rejection is often impossible when the product is a thin and intricately configured cast article such as turbine blades because these coarse lamellar grains still induce crackings. Now, those thin and intricately configured articles such as turbine blades and impellers are commonly manufactured by the precision casting (e.g., the lost wax or investment casting) method because other methods such as precision forging and machining are generally very difficult. Here, to ensure good fluidity (i.e., the ability of the molten matter to fill up the casting mold or cavity to its tips) for the material is a must to attain a high yield of good castings or low enough rejection rates. In the case of TiAl, however, deterioration of the rejection rate is simply inevitable if an additive such as Mo, V and Nb has been added in a large quantity even for the sake of improving the toughness, because such an addition inevitably raises the melting point, enlarges the solidification temperature range and decreases the melting latent heat, all contributing to aggravate the fluidity. In particular, the melting temperature having been elevated means that Ti is activated that much and its reaction with the casting mold is promoted that much, thereby making sound casting that much more difficult. An object of the present invention is to provide a TiAl that will enable production of crack-free precision cast articles. Another object of the present invention is to provide such a TiAl that will prevent the occurrence of cracks in thin and intricately configured precision cast articles by suppressing the formation of the coarse lamellar structure ordinarily characteristic of TiAl as well as develop the tensile strengths at ambient temperature of over 500 MPa. For the purposes set forth above, the invention provides a titanium aluminide according to claim 1. Further, a method of precision casting an article is proposed, comprising the steps according to claim 2. Preferably, moreover, the casting mold is preheated to a temperature in an approximate range of 400 to 600 °C. Now, this invention is an outcome of research on the effects of the Al content in the binary TiAl on the hardness, those of the Al/Ti ratio on the hardness of TiAl containing 1.5 mass % V, those of the Al/Ti ratio on the correlation between V content and hardness, etc. Namely, as shown in Figure 3, the hardness (here given in terms of Hv, the Vickers hardness number, for a load of 5 kgf) of binary Ti-Al alloy changes greatly with the changes in the Al content, even though the melting point and the solidification range change little. This fact has a great deal to do with the process of precision casting when it comes to taking the article out by breaking the mold immediately on completion of the casting and cooling, even though it does not reflect on the properties determined for annealed or isothermally forged ingots and billets. Next, the description deals with the effect of addition of V by 1.5 mass % referring to Figure 4 where the dotted line is the curve of Figure 3 transcribed thereinto: the results is to merely translate the trend line to higher Al/Ti side. In fact, the use of ternary Ti-Al-1.5 V alloy in precision casting, e.g., a turbine vane, does not perfectly forestall the cracking as noted earlier on, yet a benefit is seen in the reduced frequency of occurrence of crackings. On the other hand, it was discovered that this benefit of V addition can be had without incurring undue hardness increase, in fact, often reducing the hardness actually, and also that this admirable result can be achieved by controlling the V content with regard to the Al/Ti ratio as defined by the formula (I) introduced above. It was also found that the crackings of cast articles can be prevented if the hardness is held to Hv 300 and less. Here, the Al content is specified to be in an approximate range of 33.0 to 35.0 mass %, i.e., a range of 0.49 to 0.54 in terms of the Al/Ti ratio, pertaining to the binary Ti-Al system. This is based on my own research results that the beneficial effect of V addition can be realized most readily in its range, that when the Al content is smaller than 33%, the alloy is liable to produce too much Ti₃Al which incurs crackings, and that when the Al content is greater than 35%, the cast structure becomes coarse, leading into crackings again. One thing to be remembered here is that with the binary Ti-Al alloy, the hardness becomes less than Hv = 300 for Al contents of 34% and above, with or without addition of V, but crackings do not cease to occur. As for the addition of V, I specify it as in the formula (I) introduced earlier on. This formula follows the hardness minima shown in Figure 1 with an allowance band of ± 0.2 mass % and ensures no occurrence of crackings. An example is shown in Figure 2 with photomicrographs (at a magnification of 200X) of two ternary Ti-Al-V alloys and a binary Ti-Al alloy. In Fig. 2(a), the alloy is of a composition 65.7Ti-33.8Al-0.5V, i.e., an alloy of this invention, and the microstructure is that of refined grains breaking up the coarse lamellar grains, the hardness being 250 Hv; in Fig.2(b), the alloy is 65.0Ti-35.0Al and the microstructure is typical coarse lamellar structure; and in Fig.2(c), the alloy is again ternary as in Fig.2(a), but as the composition is 66.0Ti-32.5Al-1.5V, the structure is coarse lamellar type as in Fig.2(b), the hardness being 376Hv. From these observations, I have concluded that the major cause of crackings should be ascribed to the coarse lamellar structure so much so that simple addition of V, even by as much as 1.5 mass %, does not entail successful prevention of cracking for thin castings with a thickness less than lmm, because then there are only several crystals available in the thickness direction and therefore that the refinement of grains and breaking up of the lamellar structure therewith is the way to success. Preheating of the casting mold to 400 to 600°C or thereabout is an effective means to reduce the rejection rate further, although this practice is unnecessary when the thickness is lmm and over or when the configuration is simple. As for the fluidity, a property which is of a particular importance in the precision casting as noted earlier on, Al contents of less than 50 mass % are disadvantageous even if the Al/Ti ratio is kept as specified, because then the solidification temperature range can be as large as 50 to 55 °C as shown in Figure 5. In fact, even with TiAl of this invention composition, sound castings of a thickness less than about 0.8 mm are hard to manufacture. Here, the preheating of the casting mold to 400 to 600 °C is so effective in improving the fluidity that articles as thin as 0.3 mm can be cast readily by the conventional lost wax method of precision casting. Figure 1 shows effects of V addition on the hardness of titanium aluminide (Ti/Al) of various Al/Ti mass % ratios; Figure 2 is a set of photomicrographs showing microstructures of three different kinds of TiAl alloys; Figure 3 is a diagram showing the effects of the Al content on the hardness of binary Ti-Al alloys; Figure 4 is a diagram showing the effects of addition of 1.5 mass %V as a function of the Al/Ti ratio; Figure 5 is an equilibrium phase diagram of binary Ti-Al system; Now, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with the accompanying drawings. For demonstration of one embodiment, I have made a set of two Ti-Al-V alloys to the compositions shown in Table 1 with a plasma skull melting furnace and have produced or cast two turbine vanes A and B by the shell mold lost wax method of precision casting. The turbine vanes A and B were found to have come up, as cast, with the mechanical properties shown in Table 1. In Table 1, it will be observed that the vane A whose composition satisfies my specification has developed an admirable set of properties whereas the vane B whose composition lies outside of my specification had failed, developing many crackings, in unstable fracture before the 0.2% offset strain was attained. This also accounts for the difference in the elongation which was over three times as good for the vane A than for the vane B. The results presented Table 1 prove that I am able to produce thin and intricately configured articles such as wheels and turbine vanes by practicing the precision casting ordinarily. In addition, I can manufacture yet thinner articles such as 0.3 mm thick turbine vanes for a good yield of castings by the same method except preheating the casting mold to 400 to 600°C. Namely, this demonstration proves that the above-described preferred embodiment method is capable of: (1) producing crack-free articles by precision cast ing; and (2) producing precision cast articles of very small thickness at a good yield.

Claims: A titanium aluminide comprising: a) a binary Ti-Al alloy containing Ti and Al in an Al-to-Ti mass % content ratio from 0.49 to 0.54; b) V defined by a following formula: V = (14.3 x Al/Ti - 6.69) ± 0.2, where V is in mass %, and Al and Ti pertain to respective content in the binary Ti-Al system in mass %; and c) inevitable impurities as the remainder. A method of precision casting an article, comprising the steps of: (A) preparing a titanium aluminide including a) a binary Ti-Al alloy containing Ti and Al in an Al-to-Ti mass % content ratio from 0.49 to 0.54; and b) V defined by a following formula: V = (14.3 x Al/Ti - 6.69) ± 0.2, where V is in mass %, and Al and Ti pertain to respective content in the binary Ti-Al system in mass %; and c) inevitable impurities as the remainder; and (C) casting the titanium aluminide prepared in the step (A) into the casting mold. A method in accordance with claim 2, characterized in that the method further comprises the step of (B) preheating a casting mold to a temperature in an approximate range of 400 to 600°C before (C) casting the titanium aluminide prepared in the step (A) into the casting mold preheated in the step (B).

Inventors: MATSUDA KENJI, MATSUDA, KENJI
Applicants: ISHIKAWAJIMA HARIMA HEAVY IND, ISHIKAWAJIMA-HARIMA HEAVY INDUSTRIES CO., LTD.
Application year: 1991
Main classification: C22C14
IPC codes: C22C14