Thermal Stability and Nanocrystallization of Amorphous Ti-Ni Alloys Prepared by Cold Rolling and Post-Deformation Annealing

The thermomechanical processing consisting in severe cold rolling (true strain 0.7–1.9) followed by a post-deformation annealing (200-700oC) is applied to Ti-50.0 and 50.7at%Ni alloys. The thermal stability of the amorphous phase as well as the influence of post-deformation annealing on the structure, substructure and temperature range of martensitic transformations are studied using TEM and DSC techniques. For a given level of cold work, the equiatomic alloy has a higher volume fraction of amorphous phase than the nickel-rich one. For both alloys, the higher the volume fraction of the amorphous phase, the higher the thermal stability. For a given post-deformation annealing temperature, the DSC martensitic transformation peaks from the material subjected to amorphization cold work are sharper and the hysteresis between the direct and reverse transformations is narrower than those for a material subjected to strain hardening cold work. This observation confirms the absence of the well-developed dislocation substructure in the severely deformed alloy subjected to nanocrystallization heat treatment, which is consistent with TEM results.