Titanium Powder Essay Example
Production and applications
Titanium and titanium alloys powders
Titanium possesses an exclusive combination of low density, good mechanical properties at room and elevated temperatures and good corrosion resistance.
Titanium and its alloys are used extensively in aerospace,biomedical industries and in other industrial applications. However, titanium ingots are expensive to produce and fabricate. Another problem is connected with segregation in highly alloyed titanium materials. The high cooling rate that PM technology makes possible ensures signifi cantly greater amounts of alloying elements remain in the solid solution compared with ingot metallurgy and thus can substantially infl uence material phase composition and properties. At the same time, PM processing permits articles close to their final shape and thus reduces material loss and accordingly lowers the production cost.
Production of titanium powders
Many processes of titanium and titanium alloy powders manufacture are known. Currently, chemical reduction, hydrogenation/dehydrogenation, gas atomization, plasma-rotating electrode and plasma atomization processes are mainly used for commercial production. a) Chemical reduction Generally, the initial source of titanium powder is ` sponge fines ’ , so-called owing to their appearance. Sponge fines are nodular particles of pure titanium produced during the chemical reduction pro-cess from titanium tetrachloride.
The commercial manufacture of titanium metal includes the chlorination of natural or synthetically produced rutile, TiO2. The obtained titanium tetrachloride is reduced to metallic titanium by the sodium reduction method known as the Hunter process, the magnesium reduction method known as the Hunter process, the magnesium reduction method known as the Kroll process and the calcium hydride reduction process used in Russia.
In reduction processes of titanium tetrachloride, most of the residual chloride is removed by vacuum distillation
Titanium and titanium alloys powders
Titanium possesses an exclusive combination of low density, good mechanical properties at room and elevated temperatures and good corrosion resistance.
Titanium and its alloys are used extensively in aerospace,biomedical industries and in other industrial applications. However, titanium ingots are expensive to produce and fabricate. Another problem is connected with segregation in highly alloyed titanium materials. The high cooling rate that PM technology makes possible ensures signifi cantly greater amounts of alloying elements remain in the solid solution compared with ingot metallurgy and thus can substantially infl uence material phase composition and properties. At the same time, PM processing permits articles close to their final shape and thus reduces material loss and accordingly lowers the production cost.
Production of titanium powders
Many processes of titanium and titanium alloy powders manufacture are known. Currently, chemical reduction, hydrogenation/dehydrogenation, gas atomization, plasma-rotating electrode and plasma atomization processes are mainly used for commercial production. a) Chemical reduction Generally, the initial source of titanium powder is ` sponge fines ’ , so-called owing to their appearance. Sponge fines are nodular particles of pure titanium produced during the chemical reduction pro-cess from titanium tetrachloride.
The commercial manufacture of titanium metal includes the chlorination of natural or synthetically produced rutile, TiO2. The obtained titanium tetrachloride is reduced to metallic titanium by the sodium reduction method known as the Hunter process, the magnesium reduction method known as the Hunter process, the magnesium reduction method known as the Kroll process and the calcium hydride reduction process used in Russia.
In reduction processes of titanium tetrachloride, most of the residual chloride is removed by vacuum distillation