What is the main use of titanium alloy?

Titanium is an important structural metal developed in the 1950s. Titanium alloy is widely used in various fields because of its high specific strength, good corrosion resistance and high heat resistance. Many countries in the world have realized the importance of shovel alloy materials, and have successively studied and developed them, and obtained practical applications.

The first practical titanium alloy is the successful development of TI-6AL-4V alloy in the United States in 1954, because of its heat resistance, strength, plasticity, toughness, formability, weldability, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility are good, and become the ace alloy in the titanium alloy industry, the alloy usage has accounted for 75% ~ 85% of all titanium alloy. Many other titanium alloys can be seen as modifications of Ti-6Al-4V alloys.

In the 1950s and 1960s, it mainly developed high temperature titanium alloy for aero-engine and structural titanium alloy for body. In the 1970s, a batch of corrosion resistant titanium alloy was developed. Since the 1980s, corrosion resistant titanium alloy and high strength titanium alloy were further developed. The service temperature of heat-resistant titanium alloy has increased from 400℃ in the 1950s to 600 ~ 650℃ in the 1990s. The appearance of A2(Ti3Al) and R (TiAl) base alloys makes titanium in the engine from the cold end of the engine (fan and compressor) to the hot end of the engine (turbine) direction. Structural titanium alloys develop towards high strength, high plastic, high strength, high toughness, high modulus and high damage tolerance.

In addition, shape memory alloys such as Ti-Ni, Ti-Ni-Fe and Ti-Ni-Nb have been developed since the 1970s and are increasingly widely used in engineering.

At present, hundreds of titanium alloys have been developed in the world, with 20 to 30 of the most famous alloys, Such as TI-6AL-4V, TI-5AL-2.5Sn, TI-2AL-2.5Zr, TI-32Mo, Ti-Mo-Ni, TI-PD, SP-700, TI-6242, TI-1023, TI-10-5-3, TI-1023, BT9, BT20, IMI829, IMI 834 (2, 4].

Titanium alloys can be divided into four types: α, α+β, β alloys and Ti-Al intermetallic compounds (TixAl, x=1 here).

2. New progress of titanium alloys

In recent years, countries are developing new titanium alloys with low cost and high performance, and making efforts to make titanium alloys enter the civil industrial field with huge market potential. The new research progress of titanium alloy materials at home and abroad is mainly reflected in the following aspects.

(1) high-temperature titanium alloy.

The world's first successful development of high temperature titanium alloy is TI-6AL-4V, the use of the temperature of 300-350℃. Subsequently, alloys such as IMI550 and BT3-1 with a temperature of 400℃ and IMI679, IMI685, TI-6246 and TI-6242 with a temperature of 450~500℃ were developed successively. At present, new high-temperature titanium alloys have been successfully used in military and civil aircraft engines. British IMI829, IMI834 alloy; American TI-1100 alloy; Russian BT18Y, BT36 alloy, etc. Table 7 shows the maximum service temperature of new high-temperature titanium alloys in some countries [26].

In recent years, the use of rapid solidification/powder metallurgy technology, fiber or particle reinforced composite materials to develop titanium alloy as the development direction of high temperature titanium alloy, so that the use of titanium alloy temperature can be increased to 650℃ above [1,27,29,31]. McDonnell Douglas developed a high purity and high density titanium alloy by using rapid solidification/powder metallurgy technology, whose strength at 760℃ is equivalent to the strength of titanium alloy used at room temperature [26].

(2) Titanium alloys based on Ti-Al compounds.

Compared with the general titanium alloy, the biggest advantages of Ti-Al compounds as sodium Ti3Al (α2) and TiAl (γ) intermetallic compounds are good high temperature performance (the maximum service temperature is 816 and 982℃, respectively), strong oxidation resistance, good creep resistance and light weight (the density is only half of nickel-based superalloy). These advantages make it the most competitive material for future aero-engines and aircraft structural parts [26].

At present, two Ti3Al-based titanium alloys, TI-21NB-14Al and Ti-24Al-14Nb-# V-0.5Mo, have begun mass production in the United States. Other Ti3Al-based titanium alloys developed in recent years include Ti-24al-11Nb, Ti25Al-17NB-1Mo and Ti-25Al-10NB-3V-1Mo, etc. [29]. The composition of titanium alloy based on TiAl (γ) is in the range of Ti- (46-52) Al- (1-10) M (at. %), where M is at least one element of V, Cr, Mn, Nb, Mn, Mo and W. Recently, TiAl3-based titanium alloys have attracted attention, such as Ti-65Al-10Ni alloy [1].

(3) High strength and high toughness β titanium alloy.

β titanium alloy is B120VCA alloy (TI-13V-11CR-3Al) developed by Crucible Company in the middle of 1950s. Type β titanium alloy has good cold and hot working properties, easy to forge, can be rolled, welding, can be through the solution and aging treatment to obtain higher mechanical properties, good environmental resistance and strength and fracture toughness is very good match. New high strength and high toughness β-type titanium alloys are most representative of the following [26,30]:

Ti1023 (TI-10V-2Fe -# Al), this alloy is comparable to 30CrMnSiA high strength structural steel commonly used in aircraft structural parts, with excellent forging performance;

Ti153 (TI-15V-3CR-3Al-3Sn), the cold working performance of the alloy is better than that of industrial pure titanium, the room temperature tensile strength after aging can reach more than 1000MPa;

β21S (TI-15Mo-3Al-2.7NB-0.2Si), this alloy is a new oxidation resistance, ultra-high strength titanium alloy developed by Timet Division of American Titanium Metal Company. It has good oxidation resistance, excellent cold and hot working properties, and can be made into 0.064mm thickness of foil;

Sp-700 (TI-4.5Al-3V-2Mo-2Fe) titanium alloy developed by Japan Steel Pipe Corporation (NKK) has high strength, superplastic elongation up to 2000%, and superplastic forming temperature 140℃ lower than TI-6AL-4V. It can replace Ti-6Al-4V alloy with the superplastic-diffusion-bonding (SPF/DB) technology to manufacture various aerospace components;

Russia developed BT-22 (TI-5V-5MO-1CR-5AL), its tensile strength can reach more than 1105MPA

(4) Flame retardant titanium alloy. Conventional titanium alloys have a tendency to burn alkanes under certain conditions, which limits their application to a large extent. In view of this situation, many countries have carried out research on flame retardant titanium alloys and made some breakthroughs. Alloy C (also known as TI-1720), with nominal composition of 50TI-35V-15Cr (mass fraction), was a flame-retardant titanium Alloy insensitive to continuous combustion, which had been used in F119 engine. Btt-1 and BTT-3 are flame-retardant titanium alloys developed by Russia, both of which are Ti-Cu-Al series alloys, which have quite good thermal deformation process performance and can be used to make complex parts [26].

(5) Medical titanium alloy.

Titanium is non-toxic, light, high strength and has excellent biocompatibility. It is a very ideal medical metal material and can be used as a human body implant. At present, Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy is still widely used in the medical field. However, the latter can precipitate extremely small amounts of vanadium and aluminum ions, which reduces the cell adaptability and may cause harm to human body. This problem has attracted extensive attention in the medical field. As early as the mid-1980s, Qiang started to develop aluminum-free, vanadium-free and biocompatible titanium alloys for use in orthopedic surgery. Japan, Britain and so on have also done a lot of research work in this field, and made some new progress. Japan, for example, has developed a range of α+β titanium alloys with excellent biocompatibility, Including TI-15ZR-4NB_4TA-0.2PD, TI-15ZR-4NB-ATA-0.2PD-0.20 ~0.05N, TI-15SN-4NB-2TA-0.2PD and TI-15SN-4NB-2TA-0.2PD-0.20, The corrosion strength, fatigue strength and corrosion resistance of these alloys are better than Ti-6Al-4V ELI. Compared with α+β titanium alloy, β titanium alloy has higher strength water, and better incision performance and toughness, more suitable for implantation as an implant in the human body. Five β-titanium alloys have been recommended for medical use in the United States, Namely, TMZFTM (Ti-12Mo -^ ZR-2Fe), Ti-13NB-13Zr, Timetal 21SRx (TI-15MO-2.5NB-0.2Si), Tiadyne 1610 (TI-16NB-9.5HF) and TI-15Mo. It is estimated that such titanium alloys with high strength, low elastic modulus, excellent formability and corrosion resistance are likely to replace the Ti-6AL-4V ELI alloys widely used in the medical field in the near future.

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