Mechanism of superplastic forming and diffusion bondingin TA15 titanium alloy

Researcher: Ms Tabassam Yasmeen

Supervisor: Dr Jun Jiang

Summary

Superplastic forming/diffusion bonding (SPF/DB) is a technology that uses material superplasticity and diffusion to produce complex hollow multicell structure structures in a single step. Diffusion bonding combined with superplastic forming (SPF/DB) is a well-established process for the manufacture of components such as ducts, aircraft wing access panels, rudders, nozzles, engine casings and blades exclusively from Ti-6Al-4V.

Titanium alloy, TA15, has a high strength to weight ratio, high weldability, and superior creep properties at elevated temperatures up to 550 °C. TA15 is difficult to deform, especially for forming complex shaped large-scale web–rib components, due to its low plasticity, large inhomogeneous deformation and narrow processing window. The main aim of the proposed research is to refine the complex phenomena that take place during all stages of Superplastic Forming combined with Diffusion Bonding to manufacture multilayer sandwich structure of TA15 Alloy.