Effect of commercial purity levels on the mechanical properties of ultrafine-grained titanium

Two grades of commercial purity (CP) titanium (grades 2 and 4) were processed using equal-channel angular extrusion (ECAE) at 300 °C and 450 °C, respectively. The processing temperatures were the minimum temperatures at which eight pass ECAE could be performed without any shear-localization. The coarse-grained (CG) microstructures of as-received grade-2 and grade-4 CP-Ti, with average grain sizes of 110 μm and 70 μm, respectively, were refined down to sub-micron levels with a mean grain size of about 300 nm for both grades after 8 ECAE passes. The ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructures led to substantial enhancement in strength for both grades. The grade-2 sample showed a more than two fold increase in yield strength (σy), from 307 MPa for the as-received one to about 620 MPa for the processed samples. The grade-4 CP-Ti exhibited a relatively smaller increase in strength due to the higher processing temperature, and it showed about 50% increase in σy after eight pass ECAE, from 531 to 758 MPa. These strength levels were obtained with high ductility levels of 21% and 25% for UFG grade-2 and grade-4 Ti, respectively. These improvements in mechanical properties are attributed to the substantially refined grain size and increased dislocation density. Grade-4 Ti is stronger than grade-2 because of the higher oxygen content. The higher ductility and significantly higher strain hardening capability of UFG grade-4 Ti, in spite of the similar grain size and microstructure with UFG grade-2 Ti, is also due to the higher impurity content, probably resulting in a higher dislocation storage capability during room temperature deformation, and thus, higher strain hardening capacity. Such properties make UFG grade-4 Ti comparable to the commercial Ti–6Al–4V alloy for biomedical applications without negative effects of the alloying elements on biocompatibility.