Development of a novel, bicombinatorial approach to alloy development, and application to rapid screening of creep resistant titanium alloys

Combinatorial approaches have proven useful for rapid alloy fabrication and optimization. A new method of producing controlled isothermal gradients using the Gleeble Thermomechanical simulator has been developed, and demonstrated on the metastable β-Ti alloy β-21S, achieving a thermal gradient of 525-700ð C. This thermal gradient method has subsequently been coupled with existing combinatorial methods of producing composition gradients using the LENSTM additive manufacturing system, through the use of elemental blended powders. This has been demonstrated with a binary Ti-(0-15) wt% Cr build, which has subsequently been characterized with optical and electron microscopy, with special attention to the precipitate of TiCr2 Laves phases. The TiCr2 phase has been explored for its high temperature mechanical properties in a new oxidation resistant β-Ti alloy, which serves as a demonstration of the new bicombinatorial methods developed as applied to a multicomponent alloy system