Significantly enhanced creep resistance of low volume fraction in-situ TiBw/Ti6Al4V composites by architectured network reinforcements

We present a new class of TiBw/Ti6Al4V composites with a network reinforcement architecture that exhibits a significant creep resistance compared to monolithic Ti6Al4V alloys. Creep tests performed at temperatures between 773 K and 923 K and stress range of 100 MPa-300 MPa indicate both a significant improvement of the composites creep resistance due to the network architecture made by the TiB whiskers (TiBw), and a decrease of the steady-state creep rates by augmenting the local volume fractions of TiBw in the network region. The deformation behavior is driven by a diffusion-controlled dislocation climb process. Moreover, the activation energies of these composites are significantly higher than that of Ti6Al4V alloys, indicating a higher creep resistance. The increase of the activation energy can be attributed to the TiBw architecture that severely impedes the movements of dislocation and grain boundary sliding and provides a tailoring of the stress transfer. These micromechanical mechanisms lead to a remarkable improvement of the creep resistance of these networked TiBw/Ti6Al4V composites featuring the special networked architecture.