Economic surface treatment of Ti-alloys to improve their resistance against environmental high temperature attack

High temperature Ti-alloys are usually sophisticated and hence expensive. To allow the use of cheaper alloys at elevated temperatures an economic and easy to apply procedure was developed to improve their high temperature capability. The treatment consists of a combination of Alenrichment in a shallow surface region plus additional fluorination. The Al-enrichment at elevated temperatures leads to the formation of intermetallic TiAl-phases. These phases improve the oxidation resistance of Ti-alloys but not to a sufficient extent. An additional fluorine treatment of the Al-enriched surface leads to the formation of a protective alumina scale due to the fluorine effect. In this paper results from high temperature exposure tests performed on different Ti-alloys without any treatment and with a combination of Al-treatment plus fluorination are presented. The results are discussed in the view of the use of the optimized Ti-components for several high temperature applications.