View Single Post
Old February 12, 2011, 09:21 PM   #8
bigwrench
Senior Member
 
Join Date: December 23, 2009
Location: foot of the uintas
Posts: 148
Titanium is not brittle, and is not prone to cracking. Near pure, non alloyed titaniam maintains the same tensle strength as mild steels at about half the weight. Even though titaniam is about 1/2 again heavier than aluminum it maintains nearly twice the tensle strength as most common alluminum alloys. The problem with using titanium is that its tough to machine as it becomes soft at fairly low temperature and tends to smear, gauld, and clogg cutting tools. It is also verry difficult to make castings from titanium because it will actually burn away in open air well before it reaches its melting point. It has to be surrounded by an inert gas sheild or processed in a vacuum to be cast. For these reasons titanium becomes expensive to form and manufacture. Contrary to popular belief, titanium is not super rare and is in fact one of the most common metal elements. It is the diffuculty in handling and machining, ect. that makes it expensive. Also strength and light weight are not the only desirable properties of titanium. It is also prized for is exeptional corrosion resistance.
bigwrench is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03992 seconds with 8 queries