Microstructure and mechanical properties of a biomedical β-type titanium alloy subjected to severe plastic deformation after aging treatment

Strengthening by grain refinement and increasing dislocation density through highpressure torsion (HPT), which is an attractive technique to fabricate ultrafine grained and nanostructured metallic materials, is expected to provide β-type Ti-29Nb-13Ta-4.6Zr (TNTZ) higher mechanical strength while maintaining low Young's modulus because they keep the original β phase. However, the ductility shows reverse trend. Greater strength with enhanced ductility can be achieved by controlling precipitated phases through HPT processing after aging treatment. Aged TNTZ subjected to HPT processing at high N exhibits a homogeneous microstructure with ultrafine elongated grains having a high dislocation density and consequently non-equilibrium boundaries and distorted subgrains with non-uniform shapes and nanostructured intergranular precipitates of α phases. Therefore, the effect of HPT processing on the microstructure and mechanical hardness of TNTZ after aging treatment was systematically investigated in this study. TNTZ, which was subjected to aging treatment at 723 K for 259.2 ks in vacuum followed by water quenching, subjected to HPT processing at rotation numbers (N) of 1 to 20 under a pressure of around 1.25 GPa at room temperature. The microstructure of TNTZ_AT consisted of precipitated needle-like α phases in β grains. However, TNTZ _AHPT at N ≤ 10 comprises very fine α and small amount ω phases in ultrafine β grains. Furthermore, the hardness of every TNTZ_AHPT was totally much greater than that of TNTZ_AT. The hardness increased from the center to peripheral region of TNTZ_AHPT. In addition, the tensile strength of every TNTZ_AHPT was greater than that of TNTZ_AT. The tensile strength of TNTZ_AHPT increased, but the elongation decreased with increasing N and then both of them saturated at N ≤ 10.