Nano-Scaled Creep Response of TiAlV Low Density Medium Entropy Alloy at Elevated Temperatures

A low density, medium entropy alloy (LD-MEA) Ti(33)Al(33)V(34) (4.44 g/cm(3)) was successfully developed. The microstructure was found to be composed of a disordered body-centered-cubic (BCC) matrix and minor ordered B2 precipitates based on transmission electron microscopy characterization. Equilibrium and non-equilibrium modeling, simulated using the Calphad approach, were applied to predict the phase constituent. Creep behavior of {110} grains at elevated temperatures was investigated by nanoindentation and the results were compared with Cantor alloy and Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Dislocation creep was found to be the dominant mechanism. The decreasing trend of hardness in {110} grains of BCC TiAlV is different from that in {111} grains of face-centered-cubic (FCC) Cantor alloy due to the different temperature-dependence of Peierls stress in these two lattice structures. The activation energy value of {110} grains was lower than that of {111} grains in FCC Cantor alloy because of the denser atomic stacking in FCC alloys. Compared with conventional Ti-6Al-4V alloy, TiAlV possesses considerably higher hardness and specific strength (63% higher), 83% lower creep displacement at room temperature, and 50% lower creep strain rate over the temperature range from 500 to 600 °C under the similar 1150 MPa stress, indicating a promising substitution for Ti-6Al-4V alloy as structural materials.