ROLE OF NITROGEN DURING DRY-AIR OXIDATION OF TiAlNbCrSi ALLOY PRODUCED WITH MOULD CASTING (MC) AND ELECTRON BEAM MELTING (EBM)

The lack of room-temperature ductility of high-strength TiAl-based alloys called for complicated high temperature processing limiting their application areas. Introduction of additive manufacturing (AM) methods allowed to circumvent this disadvantage, but entailed microstructure refinement affecting, among the others, their oxidation resistance. The dry-air high temperature oxidation processing of TiAl-based alloys is relatively well covered for coarse grained materials, but to what extent the TiAl alloys are affected by the changes caused by the AM remains to be found out. Additionally, the role of nitrogen during these processes was to large extent omitted in previous works. Within the present experiment, the mould cast (MC) and the electron beam melted (EBM) Ti-48Al-2Nb-0.7Cr-0.3Si (at. %) RNT650 alloys were dry-air oxidized at 650 degrees C for 1000 h. The TEM/EDS investigations allowed to confirm that the scale formed during such treatment consists of the layers occupied predominantly by TiO2+Al2O3/TiO2/Al2O3 sequence. Additionally, it was shown that N diffuses to the sub-scale and reacts with the substrate forming two distinct discontinuous sub-layers of alpha(2)-Ti3Al(N) and TiN. The scale over EBM was noticeably less porous and nitrogen penetration of the substrate was more extensive, while the MC showed higher susceptibility to local sub-scale oxidation.