Morphology and formation processes of lamellar grain boundaries in titanium rich binary TiAl intermetallics were studied. TiAl alloys containing aluminum content of 44 to 48 at.% were induction-heated to 1723 K followed by helium-gasquenching at various temperatures. For the Ti-44%Al, few lamellae were observed in samples quenched from higher than 1473 K. Although small peaks of beta phase were detected using X-ray diffraction, only the ordered hexagonal phase (α2) with clear APB contrast was observed in TEM observation. For the Ti-48 at.%Al alloy, almost no lamellar structure, and straight grain boundaries were observed in samples quenched from higher than 1623 K. The formation of lamellae along grain boundaries was observed in the sample quenched from 1573 K. The fully lamellar microstructures with serrated boundaries were observed in samples quenched from lower than 1473 K. It was found that the formation of γ platelets took place at higher temperatures in Ti-48 at.%Al than in Ti-44 at.%Al. Although the size of the serration is different, serrated lamellar grain boundaries could be obtained for all alloy compositions employed. The serration appeared to be due to the grain boundary migration induced by precipitation and growth of γ. Differences in transformation characteristics with aluminum content are discussed.

The fatigue strength of a nickel-base superalloy was studied. Stress-controlled fatigue tests were carried out at 700 oC and 5 Hz using triangular wave forms. In this study, two kinds of testing procedures were adopted. One is the conventional tension-zero fatigue test(R = 0). The other was a procedure in which the maximum stress was held at 1000 MPa and the minimum stress was diverse from zero to 1000 MPa at 24 and 700 oC. The results of the fatigue tests at 700 oC indicate that the fracture mechanism changed according to both the mean stress and the stress range. At a higher stress range, γ ' precipitates are sheared by a/2<110> dislocation pairs coupled by APB. Therefore, in a large stress range, the deformation occurred by shearing of γ ' by a/2<110> dislocations, which brought about crystallographic shear fracture. As the stress range was decreased, the fracture mode gradually changed from crystallographic shear fracture to gradual growth of fatigue cracks. At an intermediate stress range, as it became more difficult for a/2<110> dislocation pairs to shear γ ' particles, cracks started to propagate in the matrix, avoiding the harder γ ' particles. High mean stress induced creep deformation, that is, γ ' particles were sheared by {111}<112> slip systems, which led to the formation of stacking faults in the precipitates. Thus, the change in fracture mechanism brought about the inversion of the S-N curves.