Achievement of Room Temperature Superelasticity in Ti-Mo-Al Alloy System via Manipulation of ω Phase Stability

The achievement of room-temperature (RT) superelasticity in a Ti-Mo-Al ternary alloy system through the addition of a relatively high concentration of Al to manipulate the phase stability of the ω phase is realized in this study. The composition of the Ti-6 mol% Mo (Ti-11.34 mass% Mo) alloy was designated as the starting alloy, while 5 mol% Al (=2.71 mass% Al) and 10 mol% Al (=5.54 mass% Al) were introduced to promote their superelastic behavior. Among the alloys, Ti-6 mol% Mo-10 mol% Al alloy, which was investigated for the very first time in this work, performed the best in terms of superelasticity. On the other hand, Ti-6 mol% Mo and Ti-6 mol% Mo-5 mol% Al alloys exhibited a shape memory effect upon heating. It is worth mentioning that in the transmission electron microscopy observation, ω phase, which appeared along with β-parent phase, was significantly suppressed as Al concentration was elevated up to 10 mol%. Therefore, the conventional difficulties of the inhibited RT superelasticity were successfully revealed by regulating the number density of the ω phase below a threshold.