Mechanical behavior of tantalum and tantalum-tungsten alloys: texture gradients and macro/micro-response

We have examined the mechanical response of unalloyed Ta and Ta-W alloy annealed plates over a wide range of loadings. It was observed in general that Ta exhibits nonuniform mechanical behavior, for example, hourglassing of compression samples and multiple instabilities during tensile deformation. In contrast, the Ta-W alloys do not exhibit any unusual nonuniform behavior. This work presents data revealing the spatial distribution of texture in Ta and Ta-W alloys. Significant variations in texture both through the thickness and from one area of the plate to another were found to be characteristic of Ta. The dominant feature of the texture variations was found to be enhanced <111> crystal direction fractions at the center of the plate, with a decreasing fraction near the surface. We find that the variation in texture in the Ta-W alloys is substantially less than that seen in Ta with primarily a <100> cube texture throughout. This study suggest that the texture gradients are responsible for the nonuniform mechanical response of Ta and that the uniform behavior of the Ta-W alloys is a consequence of the absence of texture gradients