Explosive compression strengthened a near-α titanium alloy with high strength

Titanium alSloys with both high strength and good ductility have good application prospects. However, for some common medium-strength near-α titanium alloys, it is difficult to meet the requirements of high-performance applications. Here, we report an effective method of using explosive waves to further strengthen near-α titanium alloys for obtaining high strength and acceptable ductility. A superb combination of strength and ductility of the alloy strengthened by explosive compression is presented. The tensile yield strength is up to ∼1170 MPa and the elongation is up to ∼12.5 %. Compared with the as-received alloy, the yield strength increases by ∼34.5 % (∼ 300 MPa), and the ductility is not dramatically reduced. The significant increase in the tensile yield strength is attributed to the dislocation strengthening, which is due to the high-density dislocations produced by high-energy explosion waves. The acceptable ductility comes from the uniform stress distribution because of the explosive compression method with good spatial symmetry, and the work hardening ability caused by twinning and multiplication of dislocations generated by tensile deformation. These findings demonstrate the viability of an effective method of explosive compression to strengthen conventionally near-α titanium alloys with medium strength to high strength.