Studies on ductile damage and flow instabilities during hot deformation of a multiphase γ-TiAl alloy

Gamma titanium aluminides are promising alloys for low-pressure turbine blades. A significant disadvantage of such intermetallic alloys is failure induced during forming processes due to ductile damage and flow instabilities. Previous investigations on a gamma titanium aluminide alloy (TNM), have shown ductile damage due to tensile stress components and instabilities such as shear bands, pores and micro-cracks at low temperatures and high strain rates. The main part of the current work is to delineate damage and unstable regions in the low temperature region. Hot deformation experiments are conducted on a Gleeble®3800 thermomechanical treatment simulator to obtain flow curves to be implemented in a finite element method (FEM) code. Instabilities in the material are described by existing instability criteria as proposed by Semiatin and Jonas and implemented into FEM code DEFORMTM 2D. Predictions of ductile damage models and the instability parameter are validated through detailed microstructural studies of deformed specimens analysed by light optical- and scanning electron microscopy.