Formation Mechanism of Bright-Band Defect of TC18 Alloy During Forging

A systematical analysis of the macrostructure, microstructure, composition, and crystal orientation of the bright-band defect was conducted by OM, SEM, and EBSD methods, as well as Gleeble tests, and the formation mechanism of bright-band defect of forged TC18 alloy was studied. The results show that the bright-band defects in the center of TC18 alloy forging stocks correspond to β cube-grains with the size of around 100 mm. During the forging process, an inhomogeneous distribution of temperature and equivalent strain in the forging stocks is caused by adiabatic heating, which is an important reason for the microstructural heterogeneity. The large β cube-grains are formed due to the repeated compression along the orthogonal direction, which results in continuous strengthening of the texture in the center of the forging stocks, and the merging of grains with similar orientations. Through annealing treatment and compression along diagonal direction, it is possible to effectively reduce and avoid bright-band defects in TC18 alloy.