New application and prospect of titanium metal

The application of titanium in emerging markets such as construction, automobiles, and computers, and the prospects for the development of new markets for titanium. In the long run, the future of titanium new application market is bright.

Since the discovery of titanium in humans in 1790, titanium has gradually shown its unique superior performance since it entered industrial production in 1951. It not only has the superior properties of metal structural materials, but also has excellent corrosion resistance in many process media. The application of titanium can achieve significant technological advances and economic benefits. Titanium is ten times more abundant than copper. It is the "third metal" after iron and aluminum and is called "space metal".

Due to the excellent performance of the tantalum series of titanium and the abundant resources, the industrial production of titanium was immediately and highly valued. The application of titanium began with the military and aerospace industries. Titanium was used on airplanes in the United States as early as 1951, and the former Soviet Union and British titanium materials were mainly used in military and aerospace fields. Titanium was first used in aviation, and the aviation market is the most important market for titanium. It still accounts for 50% of the total titanium market in the world. After the 1970s, the excellent performance of titanium was gradually recognized in the civilian industry. The application in the civil industry such as metallurgy, chemical industry and electric power increased year by year, and the dosage also increased steadily.

New application of titanium

In recent years, titanium has emerged in new applications such as construction, automobiles, computers, armor, oil and gas exploration, sports and leisure products, and has formed a stable scale.

Titanium for construction

Titanium is an excellent choice for many building applications, such as exterior cladding, curtain walling, roof cladding, distillation tower outers, roofing, interior cladding, lighting, and art sculptures and monuments. Titanium for construction has outstanding corrosion resistance, high strength, light weight and durability, and has a longer service life than any other metal and does not require maintenance. Therefore, titanium is the most practical in terms of design and development, especially in terms of life cycle.

Many new projects are listed in the plan. For example, Paris Airways has planned to use titanium in two large world-class construction projects. Titanium was also selected for use as a material for the Beijing National Centre for the Performing Arts (see Figure 1) and the Abu Dhabi International Airport for the construction of oval domes. The National Centre for the Performing Arts is estimated to use only 400 tons of titanium material; Abu Dhabi Airport is expected The amount of titanium used on roofing and structural materials will reach 800 tons. For the first time in the construction of the airport, titanium was used in structural construction. To meet engineering needs, Abu Dhabi Airport will use aerospace grade titanium alloy slabs for structural frames. In addition, the exterior of the airport will be covered with titanium panels and glass.

Titanium is relatively new in the application of European and American architecture, but it has been used in Japan for many years. More than 100 buildings have used titanium, which has solved the corrosion problems in many heavily polluted areas, cities and coastal areas. .

2. Automotive applications

The use of titanium in automotive parts can greatly reduce the weight of the car, reduce fuel consumption, improve vehicle efficiency, improve the environment and reduce noise. According to the data, every 10% reduction in body weight can reduce exhaust emissions by 10% and save 7% of fuel consumption. Therefore, the weight reduction of automobiles will play the dual role of “energy saving and environmental protection”. The specific application of titanium in automobiles is listed in Table 1.

Chevrolet's high-performance 2001 Corvette Z06 uses a titanium return air pipe that reduces the weight of the car by 8.1 kg and significantly improves corrosion resistance. The 2001 Corvette Z06 is expected to produce 6,500 units.

Springs made of titanium can be 60%-70% lighter than steel springs. In a typical, American-made, 5-6 passenger car, four titanium coil springs are used, each It can reduce the weight of about 10 kg. American Titanium (Timet) and Volkswagen AG announced in January 2001 that Volkswagen Lupo FSI's 2001 model car will use titanium suspension springs, and Volkswagen expects to produce 3,500 of these models. These are examples of the recent use of titanium in automobiles.

The use of titanium exhaust systems and suspension springs offers designers two ways to minimize weight. These recent breakthroughs have attracted many manufacturers of racing cars, luxury cars, small vans and trucks. As the economy develops and automakers increase fuel economy requirements, more engineers will choose titanium for automotive parts, and titanium will eventually play an important role in the automotive industry.

3. Application of titanium on computer

Because titanium has many excellent properties such as light weight, no metal allergy, and recyclability, titanium is increasingly used in personal computers, mobile phones and other fields. The use of titanium on computers is mainly used as computer casings and hard disk disks.

(1) Outside the titanium computer

In May 2000, IBM announced the use of titanium-based composites in its new ThinkPad notebook case. ThinkPad computer A series (such as A20p) and T series (such as T20) shells use titanium-based composite materials, which not only improve the strength and shock resistance of the casing, but also make the computer thinner and lighter.

Japan's Fujitsu is the first to use a small A5 size, 890g lightweight laptop case made of pure titanium (99.5%). In 1999, the company used titanium alloy on the outer casing of a notebook computer (INTERTOP CX300).

Titanium has a much higher tensile strength than magnesium, which is mainly used as a computer casing material (magnesium is 44.4 GPa, titanium is 106.3 GPa), and titanium has a thermal conductivity (17 W/mK) which is only ten (159 W/mK). Therefore, titanium is used as a casing material to maintain strength while achieving thinning, suppressing heat diffusion from hardware and the like, and preventing heat generation on the bottom surface. In particular, since the titanium surface is excellent in corrosion resistance, the surface coating treatment and the like are relatively simple.

(2) computer hard disk platter

Most of the hard disk platters are made of aluminum alloy, and a "glass hard disk" has appeared recently, because the disk has greater smoothness and higher sturdiness, and has higher stability at high rotation speeds. Titanium alloy (mainly Ti-3Al-2.5V) for computer hard disk has more advantages than general aluminum alloy and glass hard disk, such as high strength, can reduce disk thickness, increase storage density and speed, surface finish High, can reduce the distance between the read and write heads and the disk, and increase the storage density; the titanium disc also has the characteristics of high damage tolerance and high surface hardness.

At present, the US Timet company invested 5 million US dollars to build a titanium disk internal organization. In 1998, it has been newly developed on the small-scale computer drive components. The titanium for hard disk will bring great benefits to Timet. At present, the specifications of the commonly used titanium hard disk on the market are: diameter 95mm; thickness 0.635mm (or 0.8mm); surface hardness 14700MPa; Young's modulus 660GPa; maximum working temperature 700°C; straightness <10μm; roughness Ra <0.8 nm. The production technology of the disc is mostly cold-rolled titanium or titanium alloy. The surface of the disc can be hardened by plasma nitriding, plasma carburizing or plasma carbonitriding. The surface of the disc can also be sprayed with tantalum titanium nitride. Or a titanium boride hard coat.

The market for computer hard disk platters is large and growing rapidly. In 1998, the world's platter production was about 450 million. Analysts predict that hard disk production will grow at a rate of 10%-15% per year. It is estimated that with the rapid development of the information industry and fierce competition in the market, titanium will have a better market for computers.

Military industry

In addition to military aircraft, military vehicles and artillery are the main military applications of titanium, and its prospects are very promising. Military vehicles are in urgent need of weight reduction, and most military vehicles in the current military have reached their design weight limits. And any new technology applied to existing vehicles requires the removal of considerable weight and does not affect the impact protection performance, so titanium is the best choice. Titanium is used in ground military vehicles such as M1 main battle tanks, M2 tanks and Bradley chariots (see Figure 5). Tests have shown that Ti-6A1-4V alloy and the new TIMETAL Ti-62S alloy are superior to conventional homogeneous armor steel (RHA) materials. Some of the performance comparisons of titanium, aluminum, and RHA steels are listed in Table 2.

Compared with conventional rolled uniform armor steel, titanium has high specific strength, excellent firing and multiple shot performance, weldability and machineability, and extremely high corrosion resistance, which can reduce 25%-60%. Weight, improve the combat capability and maneuverability of armored vehicles, and reduce life cycle costs. The low-cost, versatile TIMETAL 62S alloy saves 15%-20% compared to conventional Ti-6Al-4V alloys, making it the preferred choice for US military armor applications, such as the hatch of the Bradley combat vehicle command module. Where.

In the M2 tank, titanium is mainly used for the improvement of the command hatch and the top protective armor. The command hatch covers 68 kg each. The M2 tanks to be improved total 1,000 units. In 1997, the first batch of 580 units was modified. .

In the artillery system, two 155mm lightweight towed howitzers use a large amount of titanium alloy. The tail and reverse impact cylinders of the XM777 155mm ultralight portable howitzer are made of titanium. Since 2001, RMI USA has supplied titanium for the XM-777 155mm howitzer developed by British Aerospace Systems. The howitzer was delivered in 2003 and will make 821 doors by 2010. The project will earn $100 million in revenue for RTI.

Although titanium alloys have excellent performance, they cannot be widely used in the field of national defense due to price reasons. With the increase in research on low-cost titanium alloys, titanium will also be used in the transformation of M113 armored transport vehicles. If 50% of M113 is improved About 80,000 tons of titanium is used. The application of titanium in the future military field will also penetrate into the maritime equipment. On the naval ship, approximately 90,000 meters of copper-nickel alloy tubes for heat exchangers need to be replaced each year. If the titanium tube is used, the service life can be extended and a large amount of maintenance costs can be saved.

5. Sporting goods

Titanium is also widely used in sporting goods, such as golf clubs and ball heads, tennis rackets, hiking shoes, ski boots, ice hockey skates, bicycle racks, sprint sneakers and so on.

Titanium golf clubs are clearly dominant. Titanium has a small specific gravity and high strength. It can make the ball head bigger without increasing the total weight of the club. In a wide range of tests, the golfer's titanium ball head has an average hit rate of 20% higher than the standard steel ball head, and the hitting distance has increased. The amount of titanium used in golf and other civilian products in the United States has grown rapidly. In 1996, the consumption of titanium in the US golf market reached 4,500 tons.

The market demand for titanium tennis rackets has recently increased. Due to the deep burying of the racket, the titanium mesh enhances the impact of the racket and is well received by the players. Nowadays, almost all tennis racket manufacturers in Japan are selling titanium rackets, which account for about half of the racket market.

Due to the lightweight, high strength, high corrosion resistance of titanium frames, and no metal allergy, more than half of the Japanese frames are titanium frames. If the titanium frame market expands to China, Southeast Asia and other regions in the near future, the current demand for titanium frames will increase exponentially.

Cycling is now widely carried out around the world, and titanium bicycles are particularly suitable for high-end cycling, so the sales of titanium bicycles are gradually increasing.

In addition, the use of titanium in sports and leisure products such as watches, jewelry, ski equipment, fishing rods, etc. is also numerous, and its amount is considerable.

6. Food equipment

Titanium exhibits high corrosion resistance, light weight, biocompatibility, low adhesion, high cleanability and bactericidal properties in food equipment applications. Titanium food equipment has high efficiency, long life, low maintenance cost and low commodity. The advantages of life cost, easy to install and easy to overhaul. In the preservation and processing of foods, the salt addition method is often used, and in this respect, titanium is superior to other metal materials. Moreover, in the food processing process, the contamination from the material or the microbial contamination entering the product through corrosion is prevented, and the corrosion resistance of titanium can be said to be unique. In particular, the low adhesion can be compared with Teflon, combined with the feasibility of titanium processing technology, to achieve a deep hygienic state, making the cleaning operation easier and improving efficiency. The product is not polluted and the taste is pure. Therefore, titanium is a safe and hygienic material in the use of materials for brewing and food processing equipment.

At present, the food equipment industry market is monopolized by stainless steel, and millions of tons of stainless steel are used in food-related fields every year in the world. In order to expand the application of titanium in food-related fields, researchers are conducting work on functional tests and data for changes in corrosion resistance, fragrance and taste of titanium for food. In fact, the food industry is not familiar with titanium, so large-scale marketing campaigns should be carried out to increase the amount of titanium used in the food industry.

New application market prospects

At present, the rise and fall of the aviation industry still plays a decisive role in the titanium industry. 9.11 The terrorist attacks on the aviation industry have strengthened people's awareness of opening up new markets, and people have once again realized the importance of developing a titanium market outside the aviation industry in order to get rid of the passive situation of relying entirely on traditional industries.

The market with the most potential for new titanium applications is the automotive industry. The amount of titanium used in automobiles worldwide was only 100 tons in 1995, and reached 1,100 tons in 2002. Titanium for automobiles is a very large market. Tantalum titanium is widely used in the automotive industry, and the amount of titanium used will far exceed the amount currently used in the aerospace industry. Now, the United States can produce 15 to 16 million vehicles per year. If one kilogram of titanium is used on each vehicle, the annual amount of titanium used in the United States will reach 15,000 tons. The mass production of titanium parts by automakers marks that the world's titanium industry will gradually get rid of the shackles of the aviation industry and expand into a wider range of applications, such as the titanium parts of Alfa Romeo.

In addition, the amount of titanium used in offshore oil and gas production was 500 tons in 2000 and increased to 2,300 tons in 2006. Military armor currently uses 400 tons of titanium per year and increased to 1,300 tons by 2006. After a substantial adjustment, the titanium golf club market is still the main pillar of the titanium civilian field, with an annual sales volume of around 1200 tons.

Titanium has increased significantly in new markets such as construction, automobiles, energy, and military armor panels. Its total consumption was about 6,000 tons in 2001, and it doubled in 2004 to 12,000 tons. It is predicted that by 2013, titanium in new applications will account for 20% of all titanium, and the situation in the titanium market will be changed in the aviation industry.

Attn : Jason

Email: jasontitanium@163.com

Skype: txcanberra