It is confirmed that Al alloying increases the c/a ratio of Ti(Al) alloys, which in one aspect assists basal slip. Is there any physical mechanism or recommended paper on the impact of c/a ratio on the slip behavior of hcp metals?
The competition between basal and prismatic slip in hcp metals is not controlled by the c/a ratio*, but by the energies of the basal and prismatic stacking faults which are responsible for dislocation dissociation in basal and prismatic planes. This has been shown, using tight binding modelling, by Legrand:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642818408227636
The original article is in French, but you can find summaries of this work in recent reviews, like the book of Ladislas Kubin (chap. 3.3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198525011.001.0001)
In transition metals of the column IV (Ti, Zr and Hf), the valence d-electrons induce a strong angular dependence of the atomic bonding, which is responsible for a high value of the basal stacking fault. As a consequence, prismatic dissociation of the dislocation, and hence prismatic glide, is favoured.
Going now to Ti-Al, you can have a look to this recent article published in Acta Materialia:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2015.09.041
You will see that Al solute decreases the energy of the basal stacking fault, whereas it increases the energy of the prismatic fault, which should be the main reason why Al addition in Ti promotes basal slip.
* To convince yourself that you cannot directly link c/a ratio and basal/prismatic slip, think to Be. This element has the smallest c/a ratio among hcp metals. Hence the densest planes are the prismatic ones. But the easy glide system is nevertheless basal, because of the low energy basal stacking fault.
Slip should depend on geometrical conditions especially because they are related to bondings. However, in case of Ti(Al) you have two different atoms so that your anisotropic properties will change with the Ti-Al ratio and also the c/a ratio. I guess you ave to split this question into two. One related to single-element materials, and the other for two or more element materials. At least it wouldn't surprise me if there is some kind of thumb rule.
Section 6.2 stacking fault energy etc see end of pg 112 http://research.iaun.ac.ir/pd/ebrahimzadeh/pdfs/UploadFile_6472.pdf Hull and Bacon Into to Dislocations
Thank you for your kind help in understanding the fundemental mechanism of plastic deformation for hcp metals. Recently the influence of c/a ratio on the slip behavior of hcp metals was found in the classic textbook "Physical foundations of materials science". Thanks!
The competition between basal and prismatic slip in hcp metals is not controlled by the c/a ratio*, but by the energies of the basal and prismatic stacking faults which are responsible for dislocation dissociation in basal and prismatic planes. This has been shown, using tight binding modelling, by Legrand:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13642818408227636
The original article is in French, but you can find summaries of this work in recent reviews, like the book of Ladislas Kubin (chap. 3.3, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198525011.001.0001)
In transition metals of the column IV (Ti, Zr and Hf), the valence d-electrons induce a strong angular dependence of the atomic bonding, which is responsible for a high value of the basal stacking fault. As a consequence, prismatic dissociation of the dislocation, and hence prismatic glide, is favoured.
Going now to Ti-Al, you can have a look to this recent article published in Acta Materialia:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2015.09.041
You will see that Al solute decreases the energy of the basal stacking fault, whereas it increases the energy of the prismatic fault, which should be the main reason why Al addition in Ti promotes basal slip.
* To convince yourself that you cannot directly link c/a ratio and basal/prismatic slip, think to Be. This element has the smallest c/a ratio among hcp metals. Hence the densest planes are the prismatic ones. But the easy glide system is nevertheless basal, because of the low energy basal stacking fault.