Tantalum and tantalum alloys, due to their excellent chemical stability, high-temperature mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and formability, have been widely applied in many high-tech fields such as aerospace, metallurgy and chemical engineering, and nuclear industry.
Tantalum and tantalum alloys have excellent mechanical properties and a wide range of applications, which has attracted extensive research on their mechanical properties by scholars at home and abroad. At present, the main methods to improve the mechanical properties of Ta alloy are: (1) Alloying strengthening through alloying elements; (2) Grain refinement and strengthening; (3) Ceramic phase strengthening.
Tantalum and tantalum alloys are mainly strengthened by solid solution strengthening and precipitation strengthening. Other methods include lamellar and fiber strengthening. However, at present, the tantalum-tungsten series alloys strengthened by tungsten solution are still the most widely used and consumed. Ultrafine grain strengthening is currently a hot topic in the research of metal strengthening and toughening. However, tantalum and tantalum alloys have high deformation resistance. In most cases, hot working is adopted, making it difficult to refine the grains. So far, no obvious effect of grain ultrafine refinement has been observed in current research. Moreover, tantalum is often used in high-temperature structures, and ultrafine grain strengthening is not suitable for high-temperature working environments.
