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Molecular Foundry

HIGHLIGHTSCryo-forged Titanium Shows the More Twins are Better
October 24, 2021

Scientific Achievement

An Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) orientation map of pure titanium with a nanotwinned structure. In the orientation map, each color represents a unique crystallographic orientation of the grains. The thin strips reveal the nanotwinned structure produced via a multi-step cryo-forging process carried out in liquid nitrogen followed by annealing at 400C.

A team of Foundry staff and users used cryo-forging to create nanotwinned pure titanium that is strong without losing ductility.

Significance and Impact

This work is the first demonstration of nanotwinned structure in bulk titanium. It introduces a method that is potentially cost-effective, scalable for commercial production, and produces an easily recycled product.

Research Details

  • The research team created nanotwinned titanium by submerging a cube of pure titanium in liquid N2, and applied small compressions to each axis of the cube while submerged.
  • They found that nanotwinning increased the metal’s strength by 2X and increased the ductility of the material by 30% at room temperature, and by 100% at cryogenic temperatures.
  • TEM analysis showed that these properties occur because nanotwinned Ti forms additional nanotwin boundaries when under stress.
Zhao, S., Zhang, R., Yu, Q., Ell, J., Ritchie, R.O., A.M. Minor. Science 373, 1363-1368 (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abe7252

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