Grain growth and texture evolution in Ti-6Al-4V during beta annealing under continuous heating conditions

The kinetics of beta grain growth during continuous heating for two texturally-different, but microstructurally-equivalent, lots of Ti-6Al-4V material were determined using a direct-resistance-heating technique. Heating rates of 0,42, 5, 10. and 50 K s(-1) were utilized. After reaching the peak temperature, a special cooling procedure was utilized to avoid complete decomposition of the beta phase during cool-down and thus enable direct determination of its texture at the end of high-temperature annealing, It was found that beta grain growth is strongly affected by texture whose evolution can give rise to a behavior which is discontinuous in nature. As a result, dramatic differences in grain-growth behavior were noted in the two lots of material and were explained in terms of variations in beta texture evolution during heat treatment. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.