Wenchen Xu

The manufacturing process of maraging steel parts include forging, heat treatment and other technological links, and the strengthening mechanism at different stages is different, which has an important impact on the process design of forgings. To investigate the strengthening behavior of maraging steel, forging experiments with different deformation amounts and heat treatment conditions were carried out, and the microstructural and mechanical properties evolution of 18Ni(250) steel was analyzed. The experimental results show that the size of the martensite lath is affected by multiple factors such as the influence of grain size, recrystallization and martensite substructure fraction. The strengthening mechanism of maraging steel during forging and heat treatment is different. Forging combined with heat treatment can refine grains, and the internal defects of the original material can be better eliminated. The thermal deformation can better play the role of grain refinement compared with cyclic phase transformation, which can improve the plasticity of 18Ni(250) maraging steel.

Long seamless tubes of Ti₂AlNb-based alloys are difficult to manufacture through conventional forming methods. In this study, a multi-pass power spinning process was first utilized to fabricate thin-walled tube of Ti-22Al-24Nb-0.5Mo alloy using welded thick tube blank, assisted by on-line electro-magnetic induction heating to maintain high spinning temperature during the whole spinning process. After six-pass hot power spinning at 950 ± 30 °C, the microhardness difference of BM (base metal), HAZ (heat affect zone) and FZ (fusion zone) became much smaller, and the microhardness fluctuation ΔHV dropped to 32 from 122 of the as-welded joint due to the phase composition and microstructure homogenization. The grain size of B2 phase was refined to 0.4/0.6 μm from 2.7/10.8 μm of the as-received BM/FZ, respectively. Meanwhile, the B2 phase _B2//ND texture of the as-received rolled sheet weakened during multi-pass spinning due to recrystallization, which co-existed with _B2//ND texture in final pass. The ultimate tensile strength in axial/tangential direction was increased to 1245/1299 MPa from 1206/1010 MPa of the as-received rolled sheet, respectively, mainly due to the effect of fine grain strengthening. This study provides an effective way to manufacture high-performance tubular workpieces with low cost and high efficiency.

The cellular automata (CA) model combining topological deformation and adaptive activation energy was successfully constructed to analyze the thermal dynamic recrystallization of the magnesium alloy (AZ61). The simulation datum shown that the recrystallization nucleation located on the grain boundary (GB) once the density of dislocation accumulated to specific value, and the result presents a typical characteristics i.e., repeated nucleation and growth. The simulation results agree well with the experimental results because the activation energy affects recrystallization by affecting nucleation rate.

In this study, the isothermal die forging process of high Nb–TiAl (Ti-44Al-8Nb-0.2W-0.2B-Y, at.%) alloy blades was simulated using the ABAQUS V6.11 software and the blades were fabricated successfully. The influence of a low forging temperature (lower than 1000 °C) and strain rate on the distributions of effective strain and stress were analyzed. The results indicate that the effective strain exhibits negative temperature sensitivity and positive strain rate sensitivity. The stress exponent (n = 3.02) and the apparent activation energy (Q = 293.381 kJ/mol) of the present alloy suggests that this as-forged high Nb–TiAl alloy exhibits good deformability at low temperatures. With the reduction in strain rate and the increase in forging temperature, the effective stress decreases. Finally, high-quality high Nb–TiAl alloy blades were fabricated using an isothermal die forging technology at a rate of 0.01 mm/s and temperature of 950 °C, chosen on the basis of the simulations results. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD) results indicated that the center of the TiAl alloy blade possessed a duplex microstructure, consisting of remnant lamellar colonies and recrystallized γ/B2 grains. The refined α₂ laths showed a typical forging flow line feature in the edge position, whereas the γ laths had broken down and recrystallized.