Effect of precipitates on damping capacity and mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy

The present study was concerned with the effects of over-aging on damping property and fracture toughness in Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Damping property and toughness become important factors for titanium implants, which have big modulus difference between bone and implant, and need high damping capacity for bone-implant compatability. Widmanstätten, equiaxed, and bimodal microstructures containing fine α2 (Ti3Al) particles were obtained by over-aging a Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Over-aging heat treatment was conducted for 200 h at 545 °C. Fracture toughness, Charpy impact, and bending vibration tests were conducted on the unaged and the over-aged six microstructures, respectively. Charpy absorption energy and apparent fracture toughness decreased as over-aging was done, even if the materials were strengthened by precipitation of very fine and strong α2-Ti3Al particles. On the other hand, damping properties were enhanced by over-aging in Widmanstätten and equiaxed microstructures, but was weakened in bimodal microstructure due to the softening of tempered martensite and the decreasing of elastic difference between tempered martensite and α phase contained α2 particles, etc. These data can provide effective information to future work about internal damping and fracture properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy.