Land transportation and border securityNew process will make titanium less expensive

Protecting
troops in the field from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is a major
priority of the United States and other countries. Titanium is
the material of choice for this purpose and for others — from stopping cars to
stopping bullets — but it has always been too expensive for all but the most
specialized applications. This could change, however, with a non-melt consolidation
process being developed by Oak
Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and industry partners. The new processing
technique could reduce the amount of energy required and the cost to make
titanium parts from powders by up to 50 percent, making it feasible to use
titanium alloys for brake rotors, artificial joint replacements and, of
significant interest now, armor for military vehicles. “We recently exhibited
the new low-cost titanium alloy door made by ORNL for the Joint Light Tactical
Vehicle, which is a next-generation combat vehicle,” said Bill Peter, a
researcher in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division. “By using a
titanium alloy for the door, BAE Systems was able to reduce the weight of its
vehicle yet at the same time decrease the threat of armor-piercing rounds.” The
lightweight titanium alloy also improves the operation of the door and
increases mobility of the vehicle, making it even more useful to the military. Peter
noted that the non-melt approach, which includes roll compaction for directly
fabricating sheets from powder, press and sinter techniques to produce net
shape components and extrusion, offers many advantages over traditional melt
processing. “Instead of using conventional melt processing to produce products
from titanium powder, with the new method the powders remain in their solid
form during the entire procedure,” Peter said. “This saves a tremendous amount
of energy required for processing, greatly reduces the amount of scrap and
allows for new alloys and engineered composites.”

While
powder metallurgy has been used to produce components for many years, titanium
products have not widely been fabricated using these methods because of the
high cost of conventional titanium powders. Now, however, new low-cost titanium
powders are enabling ORNL, International Titanium Powders, Ametek and BAE
Systems to develop these technologies for titanium. In coming years,
researchers expect lightweight corrosion-resistant titanium alloys to make
their way into many other products, including automobiles, which will benefit
from the decreased weight and will be able to deliver improved fuel economy.