High temperature creep of a helium-implanted titanium aluminide alloy

The creep properties of an intermetallic alloy Ti–46Al–2W–0.5Si (at%) including strain rate and time to fracture were investigated in vacuum using helium-implanted and non-implanted samples, at a temperature of 1073 K and a stress of 200 MPa. The implantation was performed using 24 MeV He-ions, homogeneously implanting the samples with up to 1333 appm (atomic parts per million) helium. The size and location of helium bubbles were determined with transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Samples implanted with helium content above 10 appm exhibited strong helium embrittlement, reducing both the time to fracture and the elongation at fracture. The corresponding critical helium bubble size rc was determined to 10 nm.