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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 0265.PDF
268 FLIGHT, 1 March 1957 Talking About r TITANIUM The Present Position of the Metal in the British Aircraft Industry In two years I.C.I, have twice replaced their titanium- melting furnaces with new patterns. Here an 800-lb ingot is being transported past a line of furnaces with remote control and blast protection. EARLIER this month, in London, senior executives ofImperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., delivered preparedaddresses on various basic aspects of the titanium industry. They particularly addressed themselves to the British aircraftindustry, their largest customer for the titanium alloys at present available. We present here shortened forms of the seven papers,together with a table showing the composition and chief mechanical characteristics of I.C.I.'s current titanium alloys. Itis noteworthy that I.C.I, produce well over 90 per cent of all British titanium. THE GENERAL PICTURE By Dr. Maurice Cook, Joint Managing Director, I.C.I. Metals DivisionT ITANIUM is a new metal but not a rare one. It is new in the sensethat, although its existence has been known since 1791, it is only within the last decade that it has become a product of metallurgicalindustry. It was not until 1925 that it was made by van Arkel, albeit on a small experimental scale, in a state of sufficient purity for an assessmentto be made of its properties and of its potential value as an engineering material. So far, it has not been possible to translate the van Arkeltechnique into a large-scale and economically attractive extraction pro- cess; and it was, in fact, left to W. J. Kroll to devise, for the production ofductile titanium, the first industrial process, which he described in 1940. This discovery was followed by commercial production in 1948 whenabout 2-3 tons of metal were made in the U.S.A. and sold'at a nominal price of $5 per lb. Since then production has continued at a rapidlyincreasing rate and, although by far the largest output is from the U.S.A., the metal is being made elsewhere, especially in this country and Japan.Most of the titanium so far produced has been by the Kroll process, but an alternative method has been developed by I.C.I, and is being workedin this country, whereby sodium is used as the reducing agent instead of magnesium. In 1956 the total production of raw titanium was approach-ing the 20,000-ton level and in 1957 it might be nearing 30,000 tons. In the short space of three years or so the price of raw titanium has beennearly halved. All this adds up to an impressive achievement. The solving of problems associated with various aspects of titaniumtechnology has occasioned a prodigious concentration of effort, the like of which is without parallel in metallurgical history. It is, in fact, trueto say that the development of an industrially workable process for the extraction of titanium, the devising of melting techniques, and the pro-duction in wrought forms of the metal and those of its alloys that have so far been produced on an industrial scale, represents one of themost outstanding metallurgical achievements of this or any other century. It may fairly be asked what aroused the interest in titanium thatbecame so manifest, especially in the U.S.A., ten years or so ago. The simple fact would seem to be the advent of the Kroll process as a methodof producing, in quantity, a metal that had properties of significance and importance in service applications. In short, the possibility was visualizedof making available a new metal of great potential to the aircraft industry, and in the longer term to other industries also; for it was known thenthat it possessed other valuable distinguishing properties such as, for example, outstanding resistance to corrosion. Furthermore, it was known that it occurred abundantly in the formof workable ores in many parts of the world; indeed of what might be termed engineering or structural non-ferrous metals, its abundance inthe earth's lithosphere is exceeded only by that of aluminium and mag- nesium. There was thus incentive enough to encourage technical efforton a major scale. It is also probably true that because of the relatively high meltingpoint of the metal, that is 1,660 deg C, the hope was cherished that alloys might quickly be forthcoming which possessed a high degree ofstrength-retention at elevated temperatures. Although this has not so far been realized, you will be hearing later that a good deal has alreadybeen accomplished in developing new alloys with interesting and attrac- tive properties, and greater advances can with confidence be looked toin the future. Users, of course, are interested in prices as well as properties; but I amnot going into details of this aspect except to say we would expect that prices of I.C.I, titanium products generally might, by 1960, be abouthalf what they are today. Looking further ahead, and in so doing offering—I would emphasize—a purely personal view as a metallurgist, I think both the attractions and the possibilities of titanium are such that a substantially increasingproduction and use for this metal are assured. I find no difficulty in visualizing a world level of annual output of 100,000 tons in ten years'time and appreciably more thereafter. Speculation on prices likely to prevail at that distance of time would be just too much of an excursioninto the unknown for me to embark on. It is, however, conceivable that the price of fabricated forms of titanium on a weight basis might, intime, be about twice that of stainless steel, which approximates to a cost parity by volume. The cost of titanium in ore form is in pence a pound; in wrought formsit is £ a pound. The reason for this enormous spread derives essentially from certain unalterable physical-chemical properties of the metal, suchas its intense reactivity, especially in the molten state; its facility for dissolving its own oxide; the affinity it has for such elements as nitrogen,carbon and hydrogen; and the effect they have on its properties. It is indeed these characteristics which have necessitated the complex andexacting techniques involved in extracting the metal and its subsequent processing. Further improvements to existing extraction methods, with a cheapen-ing of them, will continue; and radically new ones might be devised. Again, in further processing, improved and new techniques, plant andequipment will be developed, as indeed they are being. THE COMMERCIAL POSITION By Michael Clapham, Joint Managing Director, I.C.I. Metals DivisionI N dealing with the status of titanium among the metals, Dr. Cook hassaid something of its theoretically possible price. What I want to do is to say something about the factors you have to take into account whendeciding whether and how much to use it today—its present price in wrought forms, and why it is high; the extent and probable timing ofits reduction; and the supply/demand relationship as we expect it to be over the next few years. Let us take the position of supply and demand first, because the levelof production has a direct bearing on the price. At present the total manufacture of wrought forms of titanium in the United Kingdom isrunning at the rate of about 400 tons a year—well over 90 per cent of it being done by I.C.I. For comparison, the rate of manufacture in theUnited States is at the rate of about 500 to 600 tons a month, more than twelve times as much as ours. In both countries the aircraft industryis the main consumer, and many of you will be able to judge better than I how far that factor of 12 represents a difference in the size of the twocountries' aircraft industries, and how far it is accounted for by a higher rate of usage over there. Certainly it seems likely that the proportion oftitanium to the total weight of aircraft produced is higher in the U.S.A. than here. The same may be true of the U.S.S.R., the only other countrywith a large-scale industry producing wrought titanium; though we have, of course, no figures about titanium or aircraft production there.Although, as Mr. Elstub will explain, our present plant has limitations, it is in general true that the main factor restricting production is lack ofdemand. That in turn raises the unit cost, since the fixed costs are very heavy—research and technical service, costing substantial fractions of amillion yearly; the capital charges on specialized plant during the period of under-utilization; and the tremendous rate of obsolescence that goeswith a rapidly developing technology—for example, we have had three sets of melting furnaces in two years. In spite of these handicaps we have, as you know, reduced the pricesof our wrought products by about 10 per cent this month. They are, however, still generally rather higher than in the United States. Wehope—and intend—to reach parity quickly : indeed, given anything like the same scale of production, we should be able to manufacture morecheaply than in the States, as we can with copper-based semis. If the present trend of usage continues, we should be running level by 1959/60.Apart from through-put, the main factors affecting costs are the price of raw material, the size of the ingots handled and the efficiency of plantand practice—including the extent to which scrap can be utilized. Mr. Elstub will be dealing with the questions of plant and production prac-tice : you will gather from what he says that we have no intention of failing to provide whatever capacity is called for, and little fear that weshall not be able to remain at least as good technically as any other
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