Abstract

This work will establish a fundamental understanding of the relationships between initial microstructure, shock-loading history, and martensitic phase transformation, and their effects on shock dissipation and subsequent spall failure in titanium alloys. Plate-impact experiments coupled with time-resolved interferometry and post-mortem characterization will investigate additively manufactured (AM) and wrought metastable β-Ti5553 and dual-phase Ti64 alloys.

Heat treatments of Ti5553 will vary the α-phase fraction, β-phase stability, and phase morphology to assess the contribution of the β → α′′ transformation on shock-wave attenuation across different initial microstructures. The influence of varying microstructures and impact conditions above and below the phase-transformation threshold on wave propagation, tensile loading histories, and damage development will be investigated in Ti5553 alloy. Complementary multi-sample target configurations and wedged-impact experiments on Ti64 will investigate the individual and coupled effects of peak stress, strain rate, and tensile-pulse duration on spall kinetics.