Effect of Equal-Channel Angular Pressing on the Microstructure and Superelastic Behavior of Ti-25 at. % Nb Shape Memory Alloy

Microstructure and mechanical behavior of Ti-25 at. % Nb shape memory alloy processed by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) at 673 K have been investigated. The effect of multi-passes ECAP on the martensitic transformation temperature and superelastic recovery strain of Ti-26 at. %Nb alloy have been analyzed. It is found that the Ti-25 at. % Nb alloy exhibits superelasticity with a recovery strain of 1.6 % after one pass ECAP process. As the ECAP pass numbers increases to four passes, the superelasticity increases a little. The yielding stress (sigma(0.2)) of Ti-25 at. % Nb alloy increases to 430 MPa and the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is near 678 MPa after one pass ECAP process at 673 K, but the yielding stress and ultimate tensile strength increases little after four pass ECAP. The grain size decreases sharply from 100 mu m to no more than 500 nm after four passes ECAP process. Effect of ECAP on the microstructure evolution and Young's modulus has been analyzed.