Effect of grain size on high-temperature stress relaxation behavior of fine-grained TC4 titanium alloy

In order to analyze the effect of grain size on stress relaxation (SR) mechanism, the SR tests of TC4 alloy with three kinds of grain size were performed in a temperature range of 650–750 °C. A modified cubic delay function was used to establish SR model for each grain size. A simplified algorithm was proposed for calculating the deformation activation energy based on classical Arrhenius equation. The grain size distribution and variation were observed by microstructural methods. The experimental results indicate that smaller grains are earlier to reach the relaxation limit at the same temperature due to lower initial stress and faster relaxation rate. The SR limit at 650 °C reduces with decreasing grain size. While the effect of grain size on SR limit is not evident at 700 and 750 °C since the relaxation is fully completed. With the increase of grain size, the deformation activation energy is improved and SR mechanism at 700 °C changes from grain rotation and grain boundary sliding to dislocation movement and dynamic recovery.