Titanium and its alloys are replacing traditional aluminum alloys in many aerospace applications. Today, the aerospace industry consumes about 42% of the total global production of titanium materials, and from now to 2010, the demand for titanium materials is expected to continue to grow at a double-digit rate. The new generation of aircraft needs to make full use of the performance provided by titanium alloy. Both commercial and military aircraft markets are driving the demand for titanium alloy. Boeing 787, Airbus A380, F-22 Raptor fighter, F-35 Joint attack fighter (also known as lightning II) and other new models all use a large number of titanium alloy materials.
Advantages of titanium alloy materials
Titanium alloy has high strength, high fracture toughness, good corrosion resistance and weldability. With the increasing use of composite materials in aircraft fuselage, the proportion of titanium based materials used in aircraft fuselage will also increase, because the bonding performance of titanium and composite materials is much better than that of aluminum alloy. For example, compared with aluminum alloy, titanium alloy can increase the service life of fuselage structure by 60%.
The extremely high strength / density ratio of titanium alloy (up to 20:1, i.e. 20% weight reduction) provides a solution to reduce the weight of large components, which is a major challenge for aircraft designers. In addition, the inherent high corrosion resistance of titanium alloy (compared with steel) can save the cost of daily operation and maintenance of aircraft.
Need greater processing capacity
Because it is more difficult to process than ordinary alloy steel, titanium alloy is generally considered to be a difficult to process material. The metal removal rate of typical titanium alloy is only about 25% of that of most ordinary steel or stainless steel, so the time required to process a titanium alloy workpiece is about 4 times that of steel.
In order to meet the increasing demand for titanium alloy processing in aviation manufacturing industry, manufacturers need to increase production capacity, so they need to better understand the effectiveness of titanium alloy processing strategy. The processing of typical titanium alloy workpiece starts from forging until 80% of the material is removed to obtain the final workpiece shape.
With the rapid growth of aviation parts market, manufacturers have felt that they are unable to do what they want. In addition, due to the increased processing demand due to the low processing efficiency of titanium alloy workpieces, the processing capacity of titanium alloy is obviously in a tight state. Some leading enterprises in the aviation manufacturing industry even openly question whether the existing machining capacity can complete the processing tasks of all new titanium alloy workpieces. Because these workpieces are usually made of new alloys, it is necessary to change the processing mode and tool material.
