The particle stimulated nucleation in Ti–35V–15Cr–0.3Si–0.1C alloy

•PSN is found in the β-stablized Ti–35V–15Cr–0.3Si–0.1C alloy.•PSN mechanism is studied by TEM and EBSD techniques.•Titanium carbides provide nucleation sites for the recrystallization.

A special recrystallization mechanism called ‘particle stimulated nucleation’ (PSN) is found responsible for the pervasive discontinuous dynamic recrystallization (DDRX) in the burn resistant β-stablized Ti–35V–15Cr–0.3Si–0.1C alloy. This might be the first time that PSN is found in titanium alloys. PSN mechanism is studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Electron Back Scattered Diffraction (EBSD) techniques. Local strain incompatibility between the matrix and the titanium carbides leads to high density of dislocation in the particle deformation zone (PDZ), which provides the ideal sites for PSN. Recrystallized grains produced by PSN is randomly oriented and the microtexture gets weaker as the fraction of DRX increases.