The ductility of TiAl intermetallics can be improved through stabilizing the ductile β phase.New β-stabilized Ti-45Al-xFe-yMo（x,y=1,2,3,4） alloys were designed through adding the β stabilizing elements Fe and Mo.The microstructural evolution and deformation behavior of the Ti-45Al-xFe-yMo alloys were investigated.The results show that the amount of β（B2） phase is increased with the increase of alloying elements.Mo shows a higher capability for stabilizing the β phase than Fe.In the optimized Ti-45Al-3Fe-2Mo alloy,the grains are significantly refined to about 12 μm,and this alloy shows a very good hot ductility at the elevated temperature.
A TiAl-Nb composite was prepared by spark plasma sintering （SPS） at 1250 °C and 50 MPa for 5 min from prealloyed TiAl powder and elemental Nb powder in a molar ratio of 9：1 for improving the fracture toughness of TiAl alloy at room temperature. The microstructure, phase constitute, fracture surface and fracture toughness were determined by X-ray diffractometry, electron probe micro-analysis, scanning and transmission electron microscopy and mechanical testing. The results show that the sintered samples mainly consist of γ phase, O phase, niobium solid solution （Nbss） phase and B2 phase. The fracture toughness is as high as 28.7 MPa？m1/2 at room temperature. The ductile Nbss phase plays an important role in absorbing the fracture energy in front of the cracks. Moreover, B2 phase can branch the propagation of the cracks. The microhardness of each phase of the composite was also tested.
A fine-grained TiAl alloy with a composition of Ti-45Al-5Nb-1.5Cr-0.2W （mole fraction, %） with multiphases was prepared by spark plasma sintering （SPS） and heat-treating at 1 100 ℃ for 48 h. The relationship among sintering temperature, microstructure and fracture toughness were investigated by X-ray diffractometry （XRD）, optical microscopy （OM）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and mechanical testing. The results show that microstructure of the bulk alloy depends on the sintering temperature strongly, and the main phase TiAl and few phases Ti3Al and niobium solid solution （Nbss） are observed in the SPS bulk samples. In the heat-treatment condition, the lamellar and Nbss phase can provide significant toughening by plastic strengthening, interface decohension, crack branch and crack bridge mechanisms. The fracture mode of the SPS TiAl composite samples is intergranular rupture and cleavage fracture.
