Titanium Usage Growing and Where? 1

[cj811]

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 ?

 

[JohnRBaker]

I wear a Seiko Chronograph which has a Titanium case and watch band. It's amazing how light it is considering that it has a substantial sized case, being a chronograph with it's extra dials and buttons.

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'
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Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[rb1957]

sometimes we laern from mistakes ?

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 ?

 

[moltenmetal]

Ti is too finnicky to work with and too expensive to make to be more than a niche player. It does have excellent corrosion resistance in some services. Strength to weight is better than some materials, not as good as others. It's getting cheaper as the Chinese mass-manufacture it, but the embodied energy of Ti is still enormous- aluminum is bad enough but Ti is Al on steroids as far as energy use is concerned. Regrettably, the local scrap price has plummeted, much faster than the raw material price has dropped.

 

[ornerynorsk]

We've seen usage in firearms, bicycles, and wheelchairs rise sharply in the last decade or two, but until the cost comes down, which it won't due to the energy consumption in its manufacture, it will remain fringe.

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.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

I think I read someplace the reason you don't see carbon fiber used more often in airplanes is due to sourcing issues than anything.

 

[rb1957]

that surprises me. but, hey, (and you'll all hate me for this) if sourcing Carbon is a problem, and we have too much in the atmosphere, well ... carbon sequestration ??

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[monkeydog]

For Aerospace, I would suspect the reason is there is not enough paper to accompany the carbon.

 

[BiPolarMoment]

I use titanium constantly as it's one of the few biocompatible materials for implants and price is not enough of a driver to change that. The ability to anodize it different colors also comes in very useful. 316L is still sometimes used but the additional MRI/CT artifact makes it not ideal in situations where areas near the implant site need to be assessed.

From a pure volume standpoint though, the medical industry is an "other" pie slice within the existing "other" pie slice.

We've seen usage in firearms, bicycles, and wheelchairs rise sharply in the last decade or two, but until the cost comes down, which it won't due to the energy consumption in its manufacture, it will remain fringe.

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.

 

[cvg]

I have a titanium pacemaker and my wife has a titanium knee implant. both were incredibly expensive

 

[JohnRBaker]

...both were incredibly expensive

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.

 

[Comcokid]

I'm actually surprised how often titanium dioxide appears in items: paints, fillers, paper products, sunscreen, cake icing, sour cream, etc. As engineers we usually think of the metallic form of Ti and its uses.

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.

 

[IRstuff]

Ti-6Al-4V is very popular as a lightweight armor, and had Future Combat Systems continued to its conclusion, there would have been high demand for it as armor for the non-tank vehicles.

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[JohnRBaker]

I'm actually surprised how often titanium dioxide appears in items: paints, fillers, paper products, sunscreen, cake icing, sour cream, etc.

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.

 

[nengaw]

We use Titanium Tubing with clamp-on ultrasonic flowmeters. As far as I understand, it has favorable acoustic properties.

 

[GregLocock]

If you are designing weight critical strong undersea components then Ti-6Al-4V has its place. Because it is expensive you can get bar stock rolled to final size, which is nice. We were a bit worried about machining it in quantity, but our brilliant machine shop said that it was well within the capabilities of modern machines, as mere UTS was rarely a problem.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[moltenmetal]

It's not that bad to machine in our experience- the high nickel alloys are far worse. We use primarily commercially pure grade 2 rather than the 6Al4V high strength stuff.

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.

 

[drawoh]

cj811,

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

 

[glass99]

Frank Gehry clads a lot of his buildings in titanium, like the Bilbao Guggenheim.

When we laminate metal into glass we frequently use titanium because it has the same coefficient of thermal expansion as glass.

 

[moltenmetal]

Anybody who can afford Gehry can afford the titanium cladding...he did a lovely job on the Art Gallery of Ontario, but now he's pitching some rather ugly buildings downtown on the Mirvish's theatre lands. The metal's natural grey lustre is quite pretty. I made my wife an engagement place-holder ring from a piece of titanium tubing, carved nicely with the Dremel and sized on the lathe. We bought her a diamond, but she still wears the titanium one too...