Effect of yttrium and erbium on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Ti–Al–Nb alloys

▶ Room plasticity and toughness of the alloy was enhanced greatly by adding Er element. ▶ Different characteristics of Y and Er leads to different alloy's properties. ▶ By structure reconstruction, a new (AlTiNb) 2Er 3 precipitated phase was identified. ▶ Ti–16Al–27Nb–0.6Er alloy undergoes SIMT process during room compression. The effect of yttrium and erbium on the microstructure and mechanical property of Ti–16Al–27Nb alloy was investigated in this paper. Experimental results showed that the phase constituent had not been changed by Y or Er additive and all the alloys were simply composed of β, O and α phases. However, the grain size of the alloy can be sharply refined by Y or Er element. Compression test showed that the mechanical property of the alloy cannot be obviously increased by Y additive but can be sharply improved by Er additive because of the presence of fine (AlTiNb) 2Er 3 precipitates in the β phase.