Problems and Prospects of Titanium and Titanium Alloys at Present Time

lProblems and Prospects of Titanium and Titanium Alloys at Present Time

Although titanium and titanium alloys have achieved remarkable development, the existing problems have also come to light, posing considerable challenges to the development of titanium alloys. The main issues are reflected in the following three aspects:

1) In terms of production volume
Although China is a major country in the titanium industry, the quantity of high-quality products produced is not high. There are few types of titanium products with special properties. Secondly, China cannot produce titanium strips and titanium extruded profiles in batches stably, which limits the development and utilization of titanium and titanium alloys in fields such as aerospace and marine. It is still very difficult to further increase the titanium usage in aircraft engines to around 50%.

2) Performance aspect
Due to the high chemical reactivity of titanium metal, it is prone to contamination by other elements. Therefore, the processing and manufacturing techniques of titanium alloys are very demanding. Moreover, the high-performance products produced need to comprehensively consider their mechanical, physical, chemical and process properties. The existing titanium alloys exhibit a significant decline in creep resistance and high-temperature oxidation resistance above 600℃, which are the two major obstacles restricting the expansion of titanium alloy applications.

3) In terms of cost
At present, all countries are striving to reduce the application cost of titanium alloys and have achieved many accomplishments. However, considering the current situation in China, the management and technical levels have not yet reached the ideal height. The prices of domestic titanium alloy products are not competitive internationally, which is not conducive to further expanding their usage.

At present, the main application fields of titanium alloys are still in the military industrial sectors such as aerospace and other military-related industries. Developing new application fields, such as in automobiles, trains, high-speed rail, and the common civilian fields used in daily life, still have very broad prospects. Besides, replacing the expensive alloy elements with cheaper elements and reducing the cost of titanium alloy components through process approaches is an important topic in the future research of titanium alloys. After titanium alloys achieve low-cost manufacturing in high-end applications, they will be applied to various fields.