Microstructure stability of in situ synthesized Ti2AlN/Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb composite during aging at 900 ℃ was investigated by XRD, OM and TEM, and the unreinforced Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb alloy was also examined for comparison. The result showed that in the TiAl alloy,α2 lamellae thinned and were broken down, and became discontinuous with increasing aging time. The decomposition ofα2 lamella toγ which was characterized by parallel decomposition and breakdown ofα2 lamellae led to the degradation of the lamellar structure. While in the composite, lamellar structure remained relatively stable even after aging at 900 ℃ for 100 h. No breakdown ofα2 lamellae except parallel decomposition and precipitation of fine nitride particles was observed. The better microstructural stability of the composite was mainly attributed to the precipitation of Ti2AlN particles at theα2/γ interface which played an important role in retarding the coarsening of lamellar microstructure in the matrix of composite.
Microstructures of Ti2AlN/TiAl composites prepared by in-situ method were characterized in in-situ and aging treatment conditions and the nitride precipitation was investigated in Ti2AlN/TiAl composites aged at 900 ℃ for 24 h after being heat treated at 1400 ℃ for 0.5 h. The in-situ composites consist of γ+α2 lamellar colonies, equiaxed y grains and Ti2AlN reinforcements. Matrix with nearly fully lamellar structure formed after solution and subsequently aging treatment. With the increase of Ti2AlN content, the nearly fully lamellar structure becomes instable for the aged composites. According to TEM study, fine Ti2AlN precipitates are found to distribute at the grain boundaries of lamellar colony. Needle-like Ti3AlN precipitates arrange in line with growing axis parallel to [001] direction of the γ-TiAl matrix and another needle-like Ti3AlN precipitates with lager size distribute at the dislocations. Key words: