Numerical simulation of intermediate phase growth in Ti/Al alternate foils

To investigate the diffusion reaction between Ti/Al solid diffusion couple, Ti/Al alternate foils formed by hot pressing were annealed at 525, 550, 575 and 600 °C for time ranging from 1 to 40 h. The experimental results show that TiAl3 was the only observed phase at Ti/Al interface. The interface thermodynamics favored the preferential formation of TiAl3 in Ti/Al couple. The growth of TiAl3 layer occurred mainly towards Al foil side and exhibited a parabolic law. Using the interdiffusion coefficients calculated based on the contribution of grain boundary diffusion, the growth of TiAl3 was simulated numerically with the finite difference method, and the simulated results were in good agreement with the experimental ones.