Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

High-temperature alloys

Single-crystal performance boost

Titanium aluminide alloys are lightweight and have attractive properties for high-temperature applications. A new growth method that enables single-crystal production now boosts their mechanical performance.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Degradation of room-temperature strength (blue) and ductility (red) of a polycrystalline TiAl alloy (Ti–48Al–2Cr–2Nb) after exposure to air at different temperatures for 100 hours.
Figure 2: The single-crystal alloys reported by Chen et al.2 show only a slight reduction in mechanical performance, up to a temperature of approximately 900 °C (vertical dashed line).

References

  1. Williams, J. C. in Structural Intermetallics (eds Nathal, M. V. et al.) 3–8 (TMS, 1997).

  2. Chen, G. et al. Nature Mater. 15, 876–881 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Appel, F., Paul, J. D. H. & Oehring, M. (eds) Gamma Titanium Aluminide Alloys 71–248 (Wiley, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Draper, S., Lerch, B. A., Locci, I. E., Shazly, M. & Prakash, V. Intermetallics 13, 1014–1019 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Venkateswara Rao, K. T. & Ritchie, R. O. Acta Mater. 46, 4167–4180 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Schütze.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schütze, M. Single-crystal performance boost. Nature Mater 15, 823–824 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4712

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4712

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing