Sunday, March 8, 2020

Development of titanium and titanium alloys in China's aerospace applications

Titanium and titanium alloys are important materials in the fields of aerospace, chemical industry, metallurgy, and other fields. China's titanium resource reserves and raw material production capacity are the world's first, but the ability to convert to titanium is only 50%. The large-scale titanium forgings urgently needed by the aerospace and other industries have long relied on imports, and the constraint bottleneck is the lack of complete equipment and technology for the preparation of heavy-duty non-ferrous numerically controlled titanium electrodes. The development of high-performance and low-cost aerospace materials is an inevitable trend in the development of aerospace models in the future. How to optimize the technology to improve the performance of titanium alloys and reduce the cost of titanium alloys will be a strategic key issue for the development of the titanium industry in the future.
The future development direction of titanium and titanium alloys used in China's spacecraft is 1. High performance, that is, the development of high strength and toughness titanium alloys with good strength and plasticity and titanium alloys with better temperature resistance; 2. Low Cost-effectiveness, that is, the development of titanium alloys containing no or less precious metal elements, and titanium rods and plates that are easy to form and cut; 3, high processing rates, that is, the development of powder metallurgy, superplastic forming-diffusion connection ( SPF-DB), precision casting and other technologies. With the development of China's aerospace technology, powder titanium alloys and cast titanium alloys will be widely used. The increased speed of spacecraft and the demanding requirements for lightweight components, low cost and high reliability have brought opportunities for the application and development of powder titanium alloys and cast titanium alloys. Compared with the cast titanium alloy, the powder titanium alloy has a smaller and uniform internal structure and has no component segregation, and its performance is better than that of the cast titanium alloy. High-performance powder titanium alloys have been applied in key aerospace components abroad, and related research in China has also made good progress. The advent of the new technology of superplastic forming/diffusion connection has provided a broad space for the development of titanium alloys. Superplastic forming/diffusion connection structural parts are used to replace expensive components, machined parts and repaired problematic structures, and reduce the preparation time required for many tools during assembly. Superplastic forming/diffusion connection is expected to have significant effects on future aerospace influences.
The spacecraft operates under extreme conditions such as ultra-high temperature, ultra-low temperature, high vacuum, high stress, and strong corrosion. In addition to relying on optimized structural design, it also depends on the excellent characteristics and functions of the material. For aerospace materials, lightweight and high strength, high-temperature resistance, low-temperature resistance, and corrosion resistance are the main criteria for selecting materials for aerospace products. According to the demand of aerospace products for materials, titanium alloys have formed different development directions in the aerospace field, including high-toughness titanium alloys, high-temperature titanium alloys, low-temperature titanium alloys, cast titanium alloys, and powder titanium alloys. The titanium electrode is used as a consumable electrode in a vacuum consumable arc furnace, and it is smelted into heavy-duty non-ferrous titanium ingots. It is an urgently needed basic material for the development of large aircraft manufacturing. The equipment can produce 12.5 tons of heavy-duty non-ferrous titanium ingots with maximum electrode preparation. It is a heavy-duty non-ferrous complete equipment urgently needed in China's metal industry. In recent years, China has developed rapidly in the field of aerospace, with continuous mass production of new aircraft and many projects under development. It is estimated that the amount of titanium used in these two fields will increase significantly. China has already matured in the use of titanium alloys. Over time, the application of our titanium alloys can also make a leap in the aerospace industry.

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