Short-range order (SRO) and its effect on the primary creep behavior of a Ti–6wt.%Al alloy

Titanium alloys have been shown to exhibit significant levels of creep at room temperature at stresses well below the macroscopic yield strength. In this work, the effect of short-range order (SRO) on the room temperature creep behavior of Ti–6wt.%Al was studied. It was observed that SRO provides significant strengthening and that the creep transients are dramatically altered due to changes in the SRO state. Slip was observed to be planar in samples that were treated to have significant SRO and homogeneous in samples in which SRO was decreased by heat treatments.