Review on the effects of rare earths on the creep properties of titanium alloy

Titanium alloy has been widely used in aerospace, ship and petrochemical industry due to its excellent properties of high strength and corrosion resistance. Creep is one of the important indicators to see whether titanium alloy can be used under high temperature condition. Rare earth can be added to improve such performance. First, the paper gives a general introduction on the application of rare earth in titanium alloy and how it affects mechanical properties of titanium alloy. Asides from that, the paper also reviews the outcomes that might happen to the creep properties of titanium alloy due to the change of the contents of Nd, Y, Gd, Er, La and other rare earth elements and their preparation. At the final part, we summary the microscopic mechanism of rare earth elements on the creep performance of titanium alloy. By analyzing influence factors of rare earth Sc on the process of its extraction and distribution of silicide in titanium alloy is proposed. The paper demonstrates the creep-resistant principal and puts forward an instruction on how to enhance alloy's creep performance. Such research findings can be served as the basic theoretical support for the design of titanium alloy materials with better high temperature creep performance.