Near-Net Shape Fabrication Using Low-Cost Titanium Alloy Powders

Dr. David M. Bowden ; Dr. William H. Peter

关键词: AEROSPACE INDUSTRY;    AIRCRAFT;    AVAILABILITY;    ECONOMICS;    FABRICATION;    FEASIBILITY STUDIES;    FRICTION;    IMPLEMENTATION;    KROLL PROCESS;    LASER WELDING;    MACHINING;    MANUFACTURING;    MARKET;    POWDER METALLURGY;    PROCESSING;    PRODUCTION;    SHAPE;    TITANIUM;    TITANIUM ALLOYS Titanium;    Powder Metallurgy;    Energy Consumption;    Cost Reduction;    Friction Welding;    Machining;    Armstrong Process;    Cambridge Process;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1040632
RP-ID  :  None
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1040632
Others  :  TRN: US201211%%108

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The use of titanium in commercial aircraft production has risen steadily over the last half century. The aerospace industry currently accounts for 58% of the domestic titanium market. The Kroll process, which has been used for over 50 years to produce titanium metal from its mineral form, consumes large quantities of energy. And, methods used to convert the titanium sponge output of the Kroll process into useful mill products also require significant energy resources. These traditional approaches result in product forms that are very expensive, have long lead times of up to a year or more, and require costly operations to fabricate finished parts. Given the increasing role of titanium in commercial aircraft, new titanium technologies are needed to create a more sustainable manufacturing strategy that consumes less energy, requires less material, and significantly reduces material and fabrication costs. A number of emerging processes are under development which could lead to a breakthrough in extraction technology. Several of these processes produce titanium alloy powder as a product. The availability of low-cost titanium powders may in turn enable a more efficient approach to the manufacture of titanium components using powder metallurgical processing. The objective of this project was to define energy-efficient strategies for manufacturing large-scale titanium structures using these low-cost powders as the starting material. Strategies include approaches to powder consolidation to achieve fully dense mill products, and joining technologies such as friction and laser welding to combine those mill products into near net shape (NNS) preforms for machining. The near net shape approach reduces material and machining requirements providing for improved affordability of titanium structures. Energy and cost modeling was used to define those approaches that offer the largest energy savings together with the economic benefits needed to drive implementation. Technical feasibility studies were performed to identify the most viable approaches to NNS preform fabrication using basic powder metallurgy mill product forms as the building blocks and advanced joining techniques including fusion and solid state joining to assemble these building blocks into efficient machining performs.