Titanium material is expensive and can be problematic when it comes to traditional processing technologies. For example, its high melting point (1,670℃, much higher than steel alloys) is a challenge.
The relatively low-cost precision of 3D printing is therefore a game-changer for titanium. 3D printing is where an object is built layer by layer and designers can create amazing shapes.
This allows the production of complex shapes such as replacement parts of a jaw bone, heel, hip, dental implants, or cranioplasty plates in surgery. It can also be used to make golf clubs and aircraft components.
The CSIRO is working with industry to develop new technologies in 3D printing using titanium. (It even made a dragon out of titanium.)
Advances in 3D printing are opening up new avenues to further improve the function of customised bodypart implants made of titanium.
Such implants can be designed to be porous, making them lighter but allowing blood, nutrients and nerves to pass through and can even promote bone in-growth.
Titanium is considered the most biocompatible metal – not harmful or toxic to living tissue – due to its resistance to corrosion from bodily fluids. This ability to withstand the harsh bodily environment is a result of the protective oxide film that forms naturally in the presence of oxygen.
Its ability to physically bond with bone also gives titanium an advantage over other materials that require the use of an adhesive to remain attached. Titanium implants last longer, and much larger forces are required to break the bonds that join them to the body compared with their alternatives.
Titanium alloys commonly used in load-bearing implants are significantly less stiff – and closer in performance to human bone – than stainless steel or cobalt-based alloys.
Titanium weighs about half as much as steel but is 30% stronger, which makes it ideally suited to the aerospace industry where every gram matters.
In the late 1940s the US government helped to get production of titanium going as it could see its potential for “aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, and other military purposes”.
Titanium has increasingly become the buy-to-fly material for aircraft designers striving to develop faster, lighter and more efficient aircraft.
About 39% of the US Air Force’s F22 Raptor, one of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, is made of titanium.
Civil aviation moved in the same direction with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner made of 15% titanium, significantly more than previous models.
Two key areas where titanium is used in airliners is in their landing gear and jet engines. Landing gear needs to withstand the massive amounts of force exerted on it every time a plane hits a runway.
Titanium’s toughness means it can absorb the huge amounts of energy expelled when a plane lands without ever weakening.
Titanium’s heat resistance means it can be used inside modern jet engines, where temperatures can reach 800℃. Steel begins to soften at around 400℃ but titanium can withstand the intense heat of a jet engine without losing its strength.
In its natural state, titanium is always found bonded with other elements, usually within igneous rocks and sediments derived from them.
The most commonly mined materials containing titanium are ilmenite (an iron-titanium oxide, FeTiO3) and rutile (a titanium oxide, TiO2).
Ilmenite is most abundant in China, whereas Australia has the highest global proportion of rutile, about 40% according to Geoscience Australia. It’s found mostly on the east, west and southern coastlines of Australia.
Both materials are generally extracted from sands, after which the titanium is separated from the other minerals.
Australia is one of the world’s leading producers of titanium, producing more than 1.5 million tonnes in 2014. South Africa and China are the two next leading producers of titanium, producing 1.16 and 1 million tonnes, respectively.
Being among the top ten most abundant elements in Earth’s crust, titanium resources aren’t currently under threat – good news for the many scientists and innovators constantly looking for new ways to improve life with titanium.
Titanium forgings refer to products manufactured by the process of shaping metal utilizing compressive forces. The compressive forces used are generally delivered via pressing, pounding, or squeezing under great pressure. Although there are many different kinds of forging processes available, they can be grouped into three main classes:
Forging produces pieces that are stronger than an equivalent cast or machined part. As the metal is shaped during the forging process, the internal grain deforms to follow the general shape of the part. This results in a grain that is continuous throughout the part, resulting in its high strength characteristics. Forgings are broadly classified as either cold, warm or hot forgings, according to the temperature at which the processing is performed.
Iron and steel are nearly always hot forged, which prevents the work hardening that would result from cold forging. Work hardening increases the difficulty of performing secondary machining operations on the metal pieces. When work hardening is desired, other methods of hardening, most notably heat treating, may be applied to the piece. Alloys such as aluminum and titanium that are amenable to precipitation hardening can be hot forged, followed by hardening. Because of their high strength, forgings are almost always used where reliability and human safety are critical such as in the aerospace, automotive, ship building, oil drilling, engine and petrochemical industries.
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Titanium rod and bar are made from a corrosion-resistant material that has one of the highest strength-to-weight ratios of all metals. Due to the wear resistance, corrosion resistance, high-temperature resistance, and non-magnetic properties of titanium rods, it is used in the main parts of equipment, shaft body, solid parts, mixing shaft, etc.
In addition, titanium rods have the characteristics of high strength, good toughness, low modulus of elasticity, compatibility with the human body, and are widely used in the medical industry.
The forging material of the titanium rod is mainly pure titanium and titanium alloy of various compositions, and the original state of the material is titanium rod, titanium ingot, metal powder, and liquid metal.
The ratio of the cross-sectional area of the metal before deformation to the cross-sectional area after deformation is called the forging ratio. Proper selection of forging ratio, reasonable heating temperature and holding time, reasonable initial forging temperature, and final forging temperature, reasonable deformation, and deformation speed is closely related to improving product quality