Effect of Heat Treatments on Residual Stress in Titanium Alloys

This paper investigates the effects of heat treatments on residual stresses introduced during machining in titanium alloys. Distortion can result from the relaxation of residual stresses, which can pose problems for aerospace components. Typical heat treatments applied to titanium alloys after machining include low temperature stress-relieving and higher temperature aging processes. In this study, machined samples are subjected to both stress-relieving and aging heat treatments to determine the degree of distortion and residual stress relaxation caused by each thermal process. Both time and temperature are varied in the heat treat experiments. Residual stresses and distortion are measured using conventional methods. The results from this research shed light on the processing-structure-property relationships for titanium alloys, and data from this study can lead to the optimization of heat treat recipes for machined aerospace components.