Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
(OP)
Titanium gets mentioned as being a metal for the future and I wanted to know if people (engineers) are seeing this in practise? I feel titanium is occasionally indie projects more for marketing reasons (bullet proof golf clubs/business card holders..) and there obviously the common applications e.g. heat exchangers that have always been ti. However with teslas cars using a titanium underbody I wondered if things really are moving increasingly towards this metal.
Somewhat of an open question but is anyone seeing titanium being chosen as a metal of choice ? Particularly is it moving to replace steel in any way ?
Somewhat of an open question but is anyone seeing titanium being chosen as a metal of choice ? Particularly is it moving to replace steel in any way ?





RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Note that it's my second one.
The first one I bought in Hong Kong about 10 years ago as they were not yet available in the US but after a few years, while it was supposed to be watertight to a depth of 100M, it somehow sprung a leak and I could never stop the dial face from fogging up on hot days but instead of taking the watch apart or having a jeweler clean it out, I pulled both of the push buttons out and tried to use a can of 'Dust-Off' to blow the moisture out one opening by sticking the nozzle into the other. Unfortunately, all I managed to do was literally BLOW the watch apart (it was spectacular). However, I was spoiled and would not go back to a normal, heavy watch and since I still wanted a chronograph, I ended up buying my second Titanium Seiko. I still could not find any retailer that stocked them and so I had to order it over the internet but I've had this one now for about 5 years and it has remained watertight.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
back on track, Ti is a fringe player in airplane structures. It has a nice niche with carbon composites (Al is attacked by Carbon, using Ti as an interface material cures this.) but it is Very expensive. It is used in some aircraft components, where you have a a high load density (a big load in a small space) ... somewhere where you can't use Al; surprised it beats out steel (which'd be Much cheaper).
another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
From a pure volume standpoint though, the medical industry is an "other" pie slice within the existing "other" pie slice.
Coincidentally I attended a presentation this week that included some of figures related to usage and pricing. According to the what was presented, the production is still rising and the prices have come down some, maybe 10% since 2012.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
So were my Titanium watches, as compared to the equivalent model with a stainless steel case and band.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Refining Ti to a metal is an expensive and energy intensive process requiring high temperatures and an inert atmosphere.
As for me it's in my eyeglass frames.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
TTFN

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RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Yes, anytime you need something to look bright WHITE.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
TiO2 is in everything- a relatively cheap brilliant white pigment. The process of getting nice bright TiO2 from its "ores" isn't pretty, or environmentally friendly, but it isn't all that expensive either. Making sufficiently pure Ti from TiO2 IS a nasty, extremely energy intensive process for sure. That's why Ti is expensive- not because of any shortage of the ore. Same as aluminum, only much, much worse.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
How have I lasted this long without bulletproof golf clubs?
I was asked by a manager if we should use titanium for optical stuff. I told him that titanium was on a linear scale with steel, aluminium and magnesium for both density and elastic modulus. For a rigid optical structure, we would be better off with aluminium. We have been using beryllium scanner mirrors!
I designed a large belleville pre-load washer for a set of bearings. I called our fabricator and asked if titanium or beryllium copper would be the better material to fabricate. He assured me beryllium copper was better. The washers all failed. I did not have a hardness tester. I did have a power supply and a meter which revealed that he had used pure copper for the spring.
What problem do we want to solve?
--
JHG
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
When we laminate metal into glass we frequently use titanium because it has the same coefficient of thermal expansion as glass.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Back on topic, it will be interesting to see, as usage does increase, if sufficient improvements to extraction and refinement will occur to the degree that aluminum once experienced. If memory serves, aluminum was considered a precious metal not even two centuries ago.
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Note that per the spot price of finished Aluminum at the close of business yesterday, that 100-ounce object would be worth less than $6.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
First, only about 2% of Ti mined is used as metal, almost all of the rest is used TiO2 pigment.
It used to be that people built plants that produced CP material, and used it as feedstock for the high strength aerospace grades.
This changed when China began building plants. They wanted less expensive CP material for industrial use (and consumer use) and they built plants that made CP that was not suitable for remelting into aerospace grades. The CP material makes up about 85% of all metallic Ti used.
As a result CP prices are very low ($7-8/lb, about double that of Cu), but high strength aerospace grades are still as expensive as they have always been. Depending on the alloy and product form they can range from $25-75/lb.
The biggest design issue with Ti is the low modulus, only about 15kksi compared to steels (and stainless) at 30kksi.
Ti also has issues with the properties being different in various directions. Rolled plate has different strength and modulus in the longitudinal, transverse, and thickness.
Ti also (like Al) does not have a cleanly defined fatigue limit. Hence when cold worked Ti3/2.5 is used for hydraulic tubing on aircraft it has a finite service life that is much less than that of the airframe. At the same strength 21-6-9 stainless tubing may be 35% heavier, but it has an infinite fatigue life under the same design limits.
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Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad "
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
That sounds extreme. I understand that non-ferrous metals fatigue to destruction and that ferrous metals fatigue down to a limit. Titanium's lower elastic module means that for a given deflection, there would be lower stress than on a steel tube in a vibrating chassis. If the tube connection is highly stressed, the steel tube should fail also.
I have never analysed anything like this so I do not have a good gut feeling of what the results should be. I would investigate a failure like that very carefully.
Could the tube bender and work hardening have caused a problem?
--
JHG
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Square root of k over m. This would be the same for steel and titanium unless there was something heavy in the tubes.
--
JHG
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad "
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
I have seen CP Ti steam condenser tubes fail with longitudinal fatigue cracks.
Not crosswise, not at an angle, but straight longitudinal.
It has to do with variations in properties.
Today about 40% of Ti comes from China, another 40% from Japan and Russia combined (roughly equal), and the remaining 20% is from US, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and couple of minor players.
You won't find numbers published on the US sponge production. Because there are only two companies to publish it would reveal too much information. But we don know what the total maximum US production could be based on plant design.
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Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
On the point regarding the aerospace grade titanium what would be the typical difference between this and non aerospace Grade 5 titanium ? My understand is that the composition of the titanium / properties itself are a characteristic of the grade so Aerospace Gr 5 is the same as Non-aerospace Gr 5. Other than perhaps stronger governance over testing / grain size / No of remelts etc what would be the difference and account for the higher prices ?
Titanium engineer based in China - www.titaniumcn.com
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
These are all vacuum melted, either Ebeam or plasma, usually 2 or 3 times. This processing to get low residuals (and low inclusions) is expensive.
One thing to keep in mind is that costs can be different from what you assume. For Ti 6Al 4V you would think that adding Al and V would be cheap. The Al isn't bad, but the V needs to be pure (no C, no Fe) electrolytic V which is orders of magnitude more expensive than FeV used in steel making.
Some of the poor Gr2 CP out there is so dirty that you can't make premium aero grades using it as feedstock. But it will still make fine heat exchanger tubes.
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Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
A sub that can dive below 1,000 meters is valuable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-class_submarine.
Cheers.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Long range aircraft are heavy Ti users.
1. Better strength to weight than Al
2. Galvanic compatible with composites
The 787, 777, A380 are huge Ti users (6-4 and 6-2-2 mostly).
I have seen Ti used in armor, large field guns, and some other military stuff.
I saw pieces of the last Alfa class sub, 8"x8"x5" chunks being added to 321 SS here in the US.
The hull was cut up and sold as scrap.
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Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
I have just designed a titanium preload spring. Titanium has a high yield stress and a fairly low elastic modulus. We have a local machine shop who fabricates the stuff.
--
JHG
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Ti is justifiably notorious for its difficulty to machine, weld, forge, and assemble, but needed for its resistance to heat (strength at higher temperatures) while being lightweight and relatively corrosion resistant.
With today's 3D modeling techniques - which basically deposits hot liquid "plastic" into 3D shapes using a digitally-controlled and positioned injector aimed at the parts so the incoming material fuses (spray deposits) onto the existing base of the part - why not 3D "assemble" Ti mechanical parts using Ti metal pellets in a vacuum chamber? Thus, rather than "machine off" Ti from a large orginal billet bigger than the final part, you "build up" Ti grains into a very close approximation of the complex final part from "nothing" so very little needs to be machined off?
The Ti pellets or grains (now deposited in the complex shape of what the new part will look like) then can be passed to a "forge" (a die really) and get stamped into their final shape.
Would not the pressure and heat of the forging would sinter the metal powder into an adequate solid for final machining (tapping, drilling, etc) of details while avoiding the complex machining of the entire billet or casting as is needed now?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
The basic form of 3D metal printing is like what you described (using powdered metals not "pellets:), though the parts don't get forged but sintered and possibly HIP'd as a final coalescing step. Also, if you spent the money to make a forging die, why bother making a near net shape?
But according to my favorite powder metallurgists Western Sintering, nobody has figured out how to create Ti powders without the oxide coating forming on them, and that oxide can't be reduced by hydrogen-rich sintering atmospheres, so there ain't a good way to make Ti parts from 3D printing at this time.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
I believe it can also be Metal Injection Molded and sintered https://www.solidconcepts.com/content/pdfs/materia...
However, still $ with some limitations.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
I need a small number of pieces. Titanium is machinable enough. The thing has to work.
Apparently, people are using ABS FDM models as patterns for investment casting. This would be really cool if it were not for titanium's high melting temperature. I have no need for this quality, but it still is what the material does.
How feasible is sintering, given titanium's melting point, and the high yield strength of the alloy I want?
--
JHG
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
2. Considering the very limited fatigue resistance of Ti to start with I don't want to near any Ti part that sees cyclic loading if it started as powder and didn't get HIPed. Along with 100% volumetric X-ray examination.
The best Ti parts made by any additive process have been Ebeam fused powder. The defects in them are still very large and preclude all but light load static applications.
We have looked into some these process to 'repair' forgings or extrusions, so far no-go.
ornerynorsk is on the mark, the ABS FDM works great for steels, but not well for SS, Ni alloys and Ti.
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Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
My source says Ti powder can be sintered & HIP'd, but what results is a product with lot of intermetallic oxides, so the material has low ductility, much lower than conventionally produced alloys. Or, in other words, what Ed said.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Printed Titanium rocket parts apparently.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
None of the 3d AM process for metals have shown a capability to make parts that are free from significant defects.
Right now people get around this by over-design. Eventually they will get there, but it will take a while.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
The same situation will happen with titanium when lower cost technologies are developed for producing it. Just like aluminum, there is no shortage of the raw material resources needed to produce the metal.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?
Shaanxi North Steel Co.
RE: Titanium Usage Growing and Where?