doi:10.1155/2011/673685 Review Article Surface Modification and Alloying of Aluminum and Titanium Alloys with Low-Energy, High-Current Electron Beams

Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The paper reviews the results of investigations of surface modification and alloying of Al, Ti, and its alloys with a low-energy (up to ∼40 keV), high-current (up to 25 J/cm2) electron beams of microsecond duration under systematically varied conditions. The microstructural evolution of the surface layers of Al alloys (Al2024 and Al6061) and Ti-6Al-4V alloy subjected to pulsed melting as well as changes in surface-sensitive properties of these alloys are considered. Phase formation and properties of Al-based and Ti-based surface alloys, synthesized by liquid-phase mixing of multilayer film-substrate systems in wide range of solid solubility, including [Al/Si]/Al, [Al/C]/Al, [Zr/Ti]/Ti-6Al-4V, and Al/Ti, are studied. In case of Ti-based substrates, this method allows to fabricate the single-phase nanocrystalline α-(TiZr) surface alloy, free of Al and V, as well as nanosized and ultrafine grain TiAl/Ti3Al-based surface alloys of thickness ≥3 μm with enhanced mechanical properties. 1