Book Description

Electron-beam microprobe analyses were used to assess the uniformity of titanium distribution in both as-cast and heat-treated uranium-0.5 weight percent titanium (U-0.5 Ti) and uranium-0.75 weight percent titanium (U-0.75 Ti) alloys. Microsegregation due to coring was readily smoothed by heat treatment, but long-range variability remained (on the order of 0.1 wt percent). An attempt was made to examine titanium macrosegregation by a scanning image analysis measurement of the volume fraction of U2Ti in an equilibrium microstructure, but a method for consistently obtaining resolvable U2Ti particles could not be developed. As judged by tensile properties, a homogenization heat treatment of 1000° C for 24 hours was apparently the most effective of those tried for homogenizing the U-0.75 Ti alloy. The large grain size of the as-cast tensile bars apparently caused variability in the tensile-test results such that it was difficult to closely assess the optimum values of the heat-treatment parameters. 8 tables, 25 fig. (auth).