F. H. Froes

The use of titanium in production automobiles: Potential and challenges

Titanium offers a number of attractive features for use in high-production-volume automobiles; however, high cost has been a barrier to application, thus far. This article discusses the potential and challenges for the use of titanium in the family automobile.

ADVANCED MATERIALS IN GOLF CLUBS : THE TITANIUM PHENOMENON

Titanium golf club woods are capturing a huge share of the market for golfing equipment. This article describes this phenomenon and discusses emerging titanium irons and putters.

Titanium Sport And Medical Application Focus

T hiS article reports on a visit to a manufacturer of tita nium products to review the type and range of products manufactured for the market. The facility was located in Kennewick, Washington, USA (Figure 1). TiSports (TST) is a manufactllrer of titanium medical devices and sporting good such as wheelchairs, bike frames and golf shafts, as well as a producer of shaped titanium tubing. TST also distributes titanium tubular products to commercial, indu trial and sports customers worldwide. The company was founded 15 years ago, o riginally as a divi ion of Sandvik pecial Metals, a large producer of seam le titanium tubing and demonstrates how a sp inout with a diverse product range in niche value areas can grow.

Superplastic Behavior Of Fine Grained Ti-6Al-4V

addition, these alloys, as compared with traditional alloys, possess not only higher strength but also increased modulus of elasticity E, which is a very important consideration in some cases. The MEM technology, with a discrete magnetohydrodynamic refining of the crystalline structure of ingot, purification and increase in homogeneity of its metal, develops the advantages oftitanium alloys with intermetallic strengthening. In summary: 1) A MEM technology for discrete external magnetic fields with cyclically repeated magneto-hydrodynamic shocks along the ingot crystallization front has been developed. 2) The MEM technology for discrete external magnetic fields guarantees a fine-crystalline structure of cast metal, close to a forging. In addition, the cyclic hydrodynamic shocks in molten metal pool guarantees a high purity and homogeneity of the ingot. 3) MEM with a cyclic magnetohydrodynamic action on the molten melt allows the production of heat-resistant alloys with an intermetallic type of strengthening, guaranteeing a strength of 330-400 Mpa with a heat resistance up to 750-800oC.

Highly Superplastic Ti-6AI-4V sheet for Superplastic Forming and Diffusion Bonding

O ne approac h to development of metal s wit h improved behavior is pr oduct o f shee t material with very fine grain sizes. These materials have an average grain size of less th an lum and show enhanced physical and mechanic al properti es such as 2 to 3 times increased strength and improved fatigue resistanc e. They also show superplastic behavior at tempe ratures much below th e temperature range typical for materials with micronsized grains; thi s can lead to a decrease in processing tool costs and material sa ving due to reduced co n ta mina t io n . The low temperature superplasticity can be used for structure prod uction by superplastic forming/diffusion bonding (SPF/DB) at much lower temperatures (600-700°C) as compared to th at used presently (8S0-9S0°C). It is very important for SPF/D B th at shee t preforms do not have mechanical anisotropy. The submicrocrystalline or even a nan ocrystalline structure in bulk mat erial can be produced by severe plastic deformation by the use of methods such as equal cha nne l angular extrusion or multi step isotherma l forging. In the present programme a Ti-6AI -4V shee t has been developed with a submicrocrystalline structure and isot ropic prope rties are presented. Room temperature mechanic al properti es and superplastic behav ior of this shee t were also investigated and are shown.

American Society for Materials (ASM) International, Annual Meeting (November 5-8, 2001)

T hiS annual meeting of ASM I nternational also incorpo rated the ASM Heat Treatment Society Conference, the ASM Materials Solutions Con ference and TM S (The Minerals, Metallurgy and Mate ri als Society) fall meetings. It was held in Indianapolis, India na under beautiful sunny fa ll skies. Mo re than 4,000 attendees parti cipated in a large array of different scientific and technologica l sessio ns. The program began on the Monday morning with a series of special keynote lecturers, then broadened into small more speci fi c top ic areas. An interesting exposition was held in conjuncti o n with the Conference on the Tuesday and Wednesday.

The First International Conference On Advanced Materials Processing (Icamp)

public projects and commercial buildings abound. These include the Cerritos Millennium Library in California, a new Guggenheim Museum in New York (at

Northwest Mining Association's 106th Annual Meeting and Exposition, Spokane, WA, USA, Dec. 4-8, 2000

lB to be completed by 2005 with a decision on whether to use titanium still to be made), a theater in Holland, and the new Denver Art Museum. The proposed Beijing National Theater is to be constructed in the middle of a lake (Figure 10) with a completion date of 2003 and the new Ahu Dhahi Airport (Figure 11) will also feature titanium for both cladding and in the load-bearing structure. A Conference attended by almost 180 people indicating the strong interest in titaniunl in Taiwan. For further details, e-mail Dr. Charlie Chen at femtc@ms25.hinet.net or Henry Chen at Femtc@aoI.com. The First International Conference O n Advanced Materials Processing (Icamp) . -. 11 I 1 I . . Dr. EH. (Sam) Froes, Unlver~lty of Idaho, USA , !

The Titanium Market

composites are now a commodity. However, aramid and glassfiber costs have now fallen to the point where they are real challenges in the mass market, though fiber availability may slow market growth. Despite some design limitations new fabrication techniques such as resin transfer molding (RIM), resin film infusion (RFI), pultrusion and tape placement are looking attractive as cost-effective competitors to the traditional autoclave processing of prepreg laminates.

Titanium '92 : science and technology

25 22 16 15 consumption plus inventory for 1996 and 1997 (Table III). Thus, 1999 and 2000 are bad years because of the decreased amount of titanium required (Figure 2) compounded by the inventory in hand. The specifics of the decreased commercial aircraft demand for titanium appears to be due to the lower Asian demand for aircraft due to financial instability and the noise regulation deadline effect (under which the airlines bought additional airplanes so that they would comply). With the noise abatement requirement maturing (December 1999 in the USA, December 2001 in Europe) offsetting these trends are new titanium intensive designs on the B777, new generation B737s and the Airbus A330/A340. In fact, this writer has even heard of B737 designs calling for up to 30% titanium, much of it fabricated using superplastic Table II. Titanium mill product shipments summary. INDUSTRY YEAR