Diffusive and Displacive Phase Transformations in Nanocomposites under High Pressure Torsion

The high-pressure torsion (HPT) of Ti-Fe alloys with different iron content has been studied at 7 GPa, 5 anvil rotations and rotation speed of 1 rpm. The alloys have been annealed before HPT in such a way that they contained different amounts of α/α' and β phases. In turn, the β phase contained different concentration of iron. The 5 anvil rotations correspond to the HPT steady-state and to the dynamic equilibrium between formation and annihilation of microstructure defects. HPT leads to the transformation of initial α/α' and β-phases into mixture of α and high-pressure ω-phase. The α → ω and β → ω phase transformations are martensitic, and certain orientation relationships exist between α and ω as well as β and ω phases. However, the composition of ω-phase is the same in all samples after HPT and does not depend on the composition of β-phase (which is different in different initial samples). Therefore, the martensitic (diffusionless) transformations are combined with a certain HPT-driven mass-transfer. We observed also that the structure and properties of phases (namely, α-Ti and ω-Ti) in the Ti – 2.2 wt. % Fe and Ti – 4 wt. % Fe alloys after HPT are equifinal and do not depend on the structure and properties of initial α'-Ti and β-Ti before HPT.