Crystal plasticity based constitutive model for deformation in metastable β titanium alloys

Due to attractive mechanical properties, metastable β titanium alloys have become very popular in many industries including aerospace, marine, biomedical, and many more. It is often the complex interplay among the different deformation mechanisms that produces many of the sought-after properties, such as enhanced ductility, super-elasticity, and shape memory effects. Stress induced martensitic transformation is an important deformation mechanism for these alloys. Understanding of it and the influence it has on the microstructural evolution of materials is of great importance. To this end we have developed a crystal plasticity based constitutive model which accounts for both martensitic phase transformation and slip based plasticity simultaneously in metastable 𝛽 titanium alloys. We present a new formulation for the evolution of martensite transformation, based on physical principles and crystal plasticity theory. To understand and demonstrate this feature of the model, a parametric assessment of the newly developed constitutive model is conducted. This is followed by first of its kind analyses of stress induced martensitic transformation in metastable 𝛽 titanium alloys. We firstly present validations against uniaxial loading experiments for different metastable 𝛽 titanium alloys exhibiting stress induced martensite (SIM) transformation. As part of this, single crystal simulations in metastable 𝛽 titanium alloys are used for the first time to investigate the interaction of individual transformation systems during unconstrained transformation. This study shows good agreement between the experimental and simulated responses during all stages of deformation in which elastic, transformation and finally the slip stage are exhibited. Relatively “strong” and “weak” orientations for transformation are observed, consistent with experimental studies. The work done here demonstrates the ability of this crystal plasticity finite element method (CPFEM) to capture physical mechanisms while bringing new insight about the interaction of different deformation mechanisms in metastable 𝛽 titanium alloys.