Protection of Ti-alloys against high temperature environmental attack by a two step process, aluminization + fluorination

Ti-alloys cannot be used at elevated temperatures above approximately 600°C in oxidizing environments. They suffer from accelerated oxidation and oxygen uptake in the subsurface zone, which deteriorates the mechanical properties. The addition of Al (usually < 10%) into standard Ti-alloys is not enough to form a protective alumina layer. Aluminization of technical Ti-alloys and formation of intermetallic Al-rich phases (e.g. TiAl3) change the oxidation behavior from fast and non-protective rutile formation to slow growing alumina kinetics, but only for a limited period of time. A subsequent fluorination of the aluminized components gets the fluorine effect to operate. This is away to improve the resistance of technical Ti-alloys against environmental attack, even for longer service times. In this paper the results of high temperature oxidation tests of several untreated and treated Ti-alloys will be presented and their behavior compared.