TITANIUM SHEET/PLATE
Titanium plate and sheet are commonly used in manufacturing today, with the most popular grades being 2 and 5.
Grade 2 is the commercially pure titanium used in most of the chemical processing plants and is cold formable. Grade 2 plate and sheet can have ultimate tensile strength at and above 40,000 psi.
Grade 5 is the aerospace grade and is not cold formable, so it is used more often when no forming is needed. Grade 5 aerospace alloy will have ultimate tensile strength at and above 120,000 psi.
Plate is often used with the goal to get really close to the final dimensions of the part being made. The material is worked to the closest size of the desired part and the grain structure of the finished piece is more homogenous. Titanium sheet is often used as a heat barrier because titanium stops the heat and does not transfer to the rest of the assembly. Titanium plate and sheet have ballistic properties making it great for driver protection in racing.
Roller Expansion
The most commonly used method of making tube/tube sheet joints is roller expansion.
Roller expansion procedures for titanium tube into tube sheets are similar to those used for other materials. For best results, the tube sheet holes should be within the limits specified by TEMA (Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association) for shell and tube heat exchangers or within the limits specified by HEI (Heat Exchange Institute) Standards for Steam Surface Condensers.
Determining Expansion
There are three commonly used methods of determining the correct amount of expansion:
1. Measuring wall reduction
2. Simulating wall reduction by interference
3. Pull-out strength versus torque curve
The above pull-out test is preferable. The suggested wall reduction for titanium tubes is 10%. Thus, in a .028" tube or a .020" tube, the required reduction is .0028" or .0020". A small error in measurement can result in a large deficiency in pull-out strength.
Why the titanium target price is high?
Titanium target price is not cheap mainly due to the high price of its raw material titanium. Titanium sputtering target is mainly used for various film coatings, such as tool coating, optics coating, solar coating, and the like. However, its high price is a big obstacle for its popularity and development.
We generally think gold & platinum are expensive because of their scarcity, but how about titanium? Is it a precious metal? Well, among the list of the top 10 most precious metals in the world, titanium, unfortunately, doesn’t get its place, which is a foregone conclusion. Titanium is present in the Earth’s crust at a level of about 0.6% — the fourth most abundant structural metal after aluminum, iron, and magnesium.
However, titanium is always bonded to other elements in nature. Since titanium extraction is complex and costly, the price of the titanium product is high.