Preparation of Ti-6Al-4V Alloy Powder by Aluminothermic Reduction

In the present work, a novel method for preparing Ti-6Al-4V powder with Na₂TiF₆ and Al-V alloy as raw materials via aluminothermic reduction was studied in laboratory scale. The entire process of the two-stage aluminothermic reduction was introduced in detail. The products were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, and scanning electron microscopy. The mechanism of preparing Ti-6Al-4V by aluminothermic reduction was discussed. The results show that the aluminothermic reduction of Na₂TiF₆ was a stepwise reduction process and vanadium did not participate in the reaction during reduction process. Some Ti sub-fluorides and Al sub-fluorides also generated during the reduction process. Spherical or near-spherical Ti-6Al-4V alloy with uniform distribution of aluminum and vanadium can be obtained after the reduction process and ball milling process.