Electron backscatter diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were performed herein to in situ investigate the influence of texture on the anisotropic deformation mechanism of TC11 forged components. The in situ tensile specimen was cut from the TC11 ring forging, and the tensile force–displacement curve was recorded while the slip lines in the specimen surface detected was traced during the in situ tensile test. The tensile results show that the yield and ultimate tensile strengths decreased in the order of transverse-direction (TD) > rolling-direction (RD) > normal-direction (ND) samples. The anisotropy of the tensile strength was related to the differences in the activated slip systems of the ND, TD, and RD samples. The slip lines results show that in the yielding stage, the ND, TD, and RD samples were dominated by Prismatic , Pyramidal , and Pyramidal slips, respectively. In order to further analyze the relationship between the slip system and the yield strength, an anisotropy coefficient was determined to evaluate the differences in resistances for different activated slip systems, providing a good explanation of the variations in the tensile strength anisotropy. The ratios of the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) of the basal, Prismatic , primary Pyramidal , and secondary Pyramidal slip systems in the α phase were estimated to be 0.93:1:1.18:1.05 based on the type, number, orientation of slip activations, and Schmid factor. Moreover, the Prismatic slips primarily occurred in the axial and radial (ND and RD) samples with [0001] and [$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{1}2\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{1}2$] textures, whereas the Pyramidal slip system was dominant in the TD samples with [11$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{2}2$] and [10$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{1}$2] textures. Overall, this research demonstrates that the activation of the α-phase slip depends on the grain orientation, SF, and the CRSS, promoting strong strength anisotropy.

After plastic deformation, metals and alloys will be in a thermodynamically unstable high free en-ergy state with a tendency to spontaneously return to a low free energy state. Understanding the laws of occurrence and development of these processes is of great significance in improving and controlling the microstructure and properties of TB18 titanium alloy. In this paper, the recrystalli-sation kinetics is investigated based on the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami equation, and a kinetic model for the grain growth of solid solution TB18 alloy undergoing predeformation at different solid solution temperatures and different solid solution times has been established by combining the Arrhenius formula and Beck’s equation to derive a prediction model for the grain size that includes three types of parameters, namely, T, t, and ε, during the solid solution process. Using simulation soft-ware(Deform) based on finite element analysis to simulate the grain size of forging heat treatment, validate the grown-up model, and analyse the deformation of each part of the forging and the grain size deviation of its corresponding position. The results show that the deviation of grain size pre-dicted by the TB18 grain size model for the forging after heat treatment is less than 10%. Overall, the size prediction model of the grain growth has been proven to be accurate and usable.

In industrial production, the deformation inhomogeneity after metal forging affects the mechanical properties of various parts of the forgings. The question of whether the organization and mechanical properties of β-titanium alloy can be improved by controlling the amount of forging deformation needs to be answered. Therefore, in this paper, a new sub-stable β-Ti alloy TB 18 (Ti-5.3Cr-4.9Mo4.9V-4.3Al-0.9Nb-0.3Fe) was subjected to three different levels of deformation, as well as solid solution-aging treatments, and the variation rules of microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. During the solid solution process, the texture evolution pattern of the TB18 alloy at low deformation (20–40%) is mainly rotational cubic texture deviated into α-fiber texture; at high deformation (60%), the main components of the deformed texture are α-fiber texture with a specific orientation of (114). After subsequent static recrystallization, the α-fiber texture is deviated to an α*-fiber texture, while the specific orientation (114) can still be inherited as a major component of the recrystallized texture. The plasticity of the alloy in the normal direction (ND) after the solid solution is influenced by the existence of the //ND texture, and the plasticity of the alloy in the ND direction after aging is determined by a combination of the volume fraction of the //ND texture in the matrix phase and the volume fraction of [11$\stackrel{\mathrm{-}}{2}$0]_α//ND in the α phase. The results show that it is feasible to change the characteristics of the recrystallization texture of TB18 by controlling the deformation level of hot forging, thus realizing the modulation of the mechanical properties.