%0 journal article
%@ 0925-8388
%A Ibanez-Perez, J., No, M., Oehring, M., Clemens, H., San Juan, J.

%D 2021
%J Journal of Alloys and Compounds

%P 158880 
%R doi:10.1016/j.jallcom.2021.158880
%T Influence of Nb on Ti diffusion in γ-TiAl intermetallics studied by mechanical spectroscopy
%U https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2021.158880
 
%X The development of intermetallic titanium aluminides has been driven by the aeronautic and aerospace industries because of the excellent mechanical properties and low density of γ-TiAl based alloys. Up to now, several generations of γ-TiAl based alloys were developed with increasing complexity of the alloy systems. Nb is one of the most important alloying elements in γ-TiAl alloys and although it is considered as a slow diffuser, its influence has not been fully quantified yet. In this work we demonstrate, through mechanical spectroscopy measurements conducted on several γ-TiAl based alloys with different Nb content, that Nb impedes the diffusion of Ti atoms in the α2-Ti3Al phase. Internal friction measurements show a relaxation peak P(α2), which is associated with short distance diffusion of Ti atoms in the α2 phase, involving stress-induced rotation of dipoles Al-VTi-Al, whose activation energy is dependent on the Nb content. The increase of the activation energy is quantified as ΔEa(Ti)= 0.037 eV × at% Nb, being attributed to the next-neighbor interaction of Nb atoms with the local configuration of Ti-VTi. This mechanism also produces a further broadening of the relaxation peak, which is attributed to the near-next-neighbor interactions for high Nb contents. Finally, an atomic model for the mechanism responsible for this relaxation is proposed allowing to explain the observed experimental behavior.