Abstract: Grain shape of the hot deforming alloy is an important index to character the microstructure and performance of material. The fractal theory was applied to analyze the recrystallized microstructure of Ti-15-3 alloy after hot deformation and solution treatment. The fractal dimensions of recrystallized grains were calculated by slit island method. The influence of processing parameters on fractal dimension and grain size was studied. It has been shown that the shapes of recrystallized grain boundaries are self-similar, and the fractal dimension varies from 1 to 2. With increasing deformation degree and strain rate or decreasing deformation temperature, the fractal dimension of grain boundaries increased and the grain size decreased. So the fractal dimension could characterize the grain shape and size. A neural network model was trained to predict the fractal dimension of recrystallized microstructure and the result is in excellent agreement with the experimental data.

Key words: Ti-15-3 alloy, Hot deformation, Recrystallized microstructure, Fractal, Neural network