Introducing β-Ti ductile-zones for enhancing both strength and ductility in heterostructured titanium alloy composites

Breaking trade-off barriers of strength-ductility in Ti alloys and their composites has been a key challenge for their engineering applications. Herein, we developed a new strategy of introducing β-Ti ductile zones in heterostructured (Cu@CNTs/TC4)+TC18 composites, which were synthesized using two-stepped ball milling, spark plasma sintering and hot rolling processes. Such composites are composed of TC18-coarse grain zones (CGZ) and (TiC+α'')-reinforced TC4-fine grain zones (FGZ). They achieve an exceptional high strength and high ductility, which are superior to those of TC4 alloys and homogeneous Cu@CNTs/TC4 composites. Heterogeneous interfacial microstructures of TC4-FGZ/TC18-CGZ play an important role in strengthening and toughening effects. The grain-coordinated deformation between TC18-CG and TC4-FG is also the key reason for achieving an exceptional ductility.