Abstract
Recent interest in fabricating high modulus, high strength titanium matrix composites has created a need for good quality titanium alloy foils.To fabricate continuous fiber reinforced metal matrix composites, an alternating lay-up of titanium alloy foil and fiber mats is prepared, and consolidated by hot pressing or HIPing. Due to various problems encountered in cold rolling titanium alloy sheets to this gauges (<0.010 in), such foils have often been produced by chemical milling. However, chemically milled foil, often has poor surface finish, excessive gauge variation and may contain holes due to uncontrollable chemical attack. Chemically milled foil can also suffer from hydrogen embrittlement and may pick up other chemical impurities. In the present work, a method of producing rolled foils of titanium alloys and titanium aluminide intermetallics has been developed. The rolled foils exhibit excellent surface finish, good mechanical properties, uniform gauge and are free from any extraneous chemical contamination. Mechanical working coupled with heat treatments allows the flexibility of tailoring the microstructure and mechanical properties of the rolled foil for specific applications. The characteristics of cold rolled and annealed titanium alloy and titanium aluminide foils are described.
