TITANIUM ALLOYS

Commercially pure titanium metal is so strong that, in comparison with other metals,
less of it is required to provide any specific strength. This ingot of titsnium is about
40% lighter than one of stainless stcel.

TITANIUM ALLOYS FOR

This article is reprinted from the August! 1W9 issue of “Aero Digest.”
It was prepared by NATHANIEL F. SILSBEE,m aging editor. H e discusses the
general history of titanium, lists some’of its a$ys, and mentions some results
obtained by their use.
 TITAKIUhI ALLOYS

During the testimony for the 1950, Kroll, in thc carly 30s, discovered how
budget, the Air Force revealed that it to obtain ductile titanium by reduction
was counting on titanium to help break with magncsium. At the outbreak of
through the road-block which has been thc war, he fled the Nazis and brought
holding back jet-engine performance. his intricate high-temperature vacuum
Brig. Gcn. Donald Putt, in charge of metallurgy know-how to the U. S.
Research and Development on the Air Bureau of Mines.
Staff, said that: “Our materials prob- In November 1946,the Bureau issued
Icm is the major limiting factor in our an information circular by R. S. Dean
present performance of jet aircraft and B. Silkes entitled Metallic Titanium
.
and engines. . . Much work has been and its .4lloys. This may be regarded
done on high-temperature steels, in- as the start of the revised interest in
cluding employment of alloying ele- titanium alloys. For many years prior
ments such as columbium and chromium. to this, titanium has had an interesting
Titanium is coming into the picture and diversified history in its use as
very definitely. It has particular attrac- Pigrricnts in paints, enamels, plastics,
tiveness because it is not a strategic ctc., and very recently in optics, and as
material. There is a lot of it right in gcrns in jewelry. It is closely related to
the earth around its.” zirconium from which the brilliant
Titanium was discovered over a cen- “zircons” are derived.
tury and a half ago when an Austrian Since publication of the 1946 circu-
chemist named Klaproth extracted a lar, the Government and industry have
new element from an ore called rrctile. spent some ten million dollars on
He named it Titanic Earth, after the titanium-metal research. In September
mythical Titans, sons of the earth. 1948,du Pont announced the first com-
A little later, big deposits of an ore mercial offering of ductile titanium in
combining iron oxide and titanium small lots. Remington Arms (du Pont
oxide were found in Russia’s Ilmen affiliate) has put the metal on the
Mountains; this ore was named ilmenite. market in sheet and bar form. It sells
Similar deposits were later found in the for $5 a pound in 100-lb.lots for re-
U. S. and Canada, Brazil, Africa, India melting to ingot, and $25 a pound in
and Australia. the form of sheet and bar. These prices
Actually, titanium is the ninth most will be greatly reduced as the metal
abundant element in the earth’s siir- becomes commercially usable.
face layer, and is the fourth most Also last fall, National Lead Co. took
plcntiful metallic element suitable for over the *year old Titanium Alloy

c
structural use-only iron, aluminum
and magne ium are ahead of it.
There is ‘ust one catch. The stuff
is so darned “friendly” that it combines
with many other elements and hangs
Mfg. Co. of Niagara Falls, and has
reported since the installation of a
large, improved furnace for the ex-
panded production of titanium begin-
ning early this summer. National Lead
on to them tenaciously to form oxides, also has what has been reported as the
nitrides and similar compounds. From world’s largest ilmenite mine in opera-
the point of view of its being hard to tion, located at Tahawus, in the north-
separate, pure titanium has been classed east corner of New York State. More
1)schemists as a rare metal. than a million tons of ore are mined
each year, from which some 250,000
COMPLICATED PROCESS. tons of ilmenite are obtained. During
Dr. Wilhelm Kroll invented thc pro- 1948, ncarly 300,000 tons of ilmenite
cess that led to the commercial de- were imported from India, Norway,
vclopmcnt of metallic titanium. Son of Brazil and Canada-most of it from
ii Ltiscnihoiirg blast-furiiace tlircctor. India.
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 TITANIUM ALLOYS

LOOKTO CANADA.
However, it is expected that the
principal world source of titanium will
shift from the sands of Travancorej
I I I
South India, tb Canada within the next
three or four years. More than 125,000,- 28
OOo tons of high-grade titanium-bear-
ing ilmenite ore soon will be under
development in the Allard Lake area
of eastern Quebec. The discovery was
recently made by Kennecott Copper
Co., and a company called Quebec Iron
& Titanium Corp.-two-thirds owned
by Kennecott and one-third by New
Jersey Zinc, its partner in the venture.
From treatment of 550,ooO tons of
ilmenite ore per year, it is estimated
that some 250,OOO long tons,of titanium
oxide slag will be produced. First out-
put is expected in 1951. The business of incorporating tita-
Switching back to Washington, the nium into alloys for use in aircraft
Committee on Appropriations was so gas turbines started on a relatively
interested in General Putt's remarks small scale some years ago. One of the
on titanium that they asked him to dig first alloys was K42B, developed by
them up a statement presenting the Westinghouse Research Laboratories,
basic facts regarding this new struc- containing 42% nickel, 22% cobalt,
tural metal. The following extract will 18% chromium, 2.50% titanium and
be of special interest in connection 15.5% iron. Cobalt and chromium are
with this article : critical materials, likely to be more so
in the light 'of recently revealed figures
"The properties of titanium are showing a sharp drop in Russia's export
favorable to extensive usage in both of these to the US.
airframe' and engine construction.
The commercial metal is available at
the weight of approximately 55% of K42B, although a useful alloy in
that of steel and 1% times the weight blades for superchargers and gas tur-
of aluminum. A strength-weight ratio, bines in its day, is now regarded as on
a property of primary interest to the way out. Some of the newer West-
aeronautical engineers, better than inghouse alloys include about the same
that of the best aluminum alloys, has percentage of titanium. Refrucfdoy 26,
been obtained in laboratories. Titan- for example, has about the same amounts
ium has a melting point of 32M0 F. of cobalt and chromium, less nickel,
about 2% times that of aluminum or and adds 3%-plus of molybdenum.
magnesium and somewhat higher Discaloy 26 contains 2.33% of tita-
than that of iron. This characteristic nium. International Nickel's Inconel W
is important since the materials will has about 75% nickel, 14% chromium,
retain satisfactory structural strength al,most 3% titanium, and is used for
at temperatures reached in supersonic combustion chambers of jet engines.
flight due t o aero-dynamic heating The famous Nimonic 80 (and WA),
and at which aluminum alloys be- used in all British turbojet and turbo-
come worthless." prop engines and made by INCOs
 TITANIUM ALLOYS

subsidiary, Henry Wiggin & Son, con- longcr life in the 1500” to 1 8 0 0 O
tains 2.44% of titanium. A German bracket; a practical life at tempera-
high-temperature alloy known as tures of 1800’ to 2600”;and a short
Tinidur contained 30% nickel, 15% but useful life at temperatures above
chromium, 1.7% titanium-no cobalt as 2600O.
they didn’t have any-and most of the Ceramic materials alone present no
balance iron. It was used for jet en- problems in heat resistance to well
gine blades (or buckets), nozzles, and above 3 0 0 0 O F . , but they are poor in
other high-temperature service. thermal-shock properties-the ability to
All of these are forgeable or wrought withstand severe and abrupt kmpera-
alloys, with a fairly high chromium ture fluctuations of the surrounding gas.
content. Those alloys used for making On the other hand, gas-turbine blade
turbine buckets and nozzle diaphragms alloys have good thermal shock re-
by precision investment castings (such sistance, but their high-temperature
as Austenal’s Vitdlium) do not contain operation is limited by the melting point
titanium, but almost invariably have of their lowest melting constituent. The
molybdenum. combination of the two in ceramals is
A decision by the military to specify therefore quite logical.
titanium-rich alloys in certain articles Cemented carbides have been widely
now under test would give. the program used in the tool industry for a number
a shot in the arm. Considering tita- of years. Research on the application
nium’s ability to substitute for stainless of ceramics for gas turbines was begun
steel (with 40% less weight) in an in Germany during the war by Dr. R.
emergency, its rapid development would Schmid, and his findings are embodied
be a good national investment. A step in a report translated by the Air Ma-
in this direction may be seen in the terial Command, Ceramic Materids for
recent establishment of project CP-10- Machine Parts Exposed to High Heat.
NASC by AIA’s National Aircraft Work in this country has been under
Standards Council, at the request of way since the war, conducted by the
the Armed Services. This is for an AN NACA, National Bureau of Standards,
(Air Force-Navy) specification for Battelle Memorial Institute, General
titanium; Lockheed Aircraft will act Electric Research Laboratory, Cham-
as sponsor of the project. pion Spark Plug‘s ceramics plant,
We have reserved for final mention Detroit, and many other places.
what may be the most promising use of One of the most promising ceramals
all for titanium in connection with jet- is a carbide-type, consisting of 80%
engine turbine blades-its use in one of titanium carbide (TIC) a’nd 20% cobalt
the “Ceramals.” (This composite word
-ceramics-met&, is sometimes re-
ferred to as “ceramets.”)
I(Co). This material has a high thermal
conductivity, a low thermal expansion
and good tensile strength. It is also
lighter than any of the present heat-
A Hm PROPOSITION. resistant alloys.
The aircraft gas turbine is essentially An investigation of this ceramal was
a heat engine. Therefore, the greater conducted at the NACA Lewis Flight
the heati the greater the power. The Propulsion Laboratory, Cleveland to
present limits of gas-turbine blades are determine its (I) short-time tensile
a reasonably long operating life as gas strength (1800 to 2200°F.); ( 2 )
temperatures up to 1500°F.. with very thermal-shock resistance (1800 to
short runs permitted up to 1 7 0 0 O or 2400°F.); simulated service perfor-
1800°F. The immediate goals of current mance characteristics from 10,ooO to
research on gas-turbine blades is for 17,500 rpm and inlet-gas temperatures
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 TITAS 1ChI ALLOTS

In phase 2 of simulated-service performance test, first ceramal-blade failure' took place

V i from top showing fractured surface of the cenmal blade.

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 TITANIUM ALLOYS

between 1700 and 2200’F. A complete that more care will be required in
report of the results of this investiga- handling carbide-type ceramal blades
tion is found in N A C A Technical Note than with metal-alloy blades.
No. 1836 (March 1949), Initial Investi- The successful passing of the first
gatioH of Carbide-Type Ceramal of 80- severe test by this TIC 801 Co 20 car-
Per Cent Titanirrnr Carbide Plus 20 Per ‘hide-type ceramal was the first step in
Cent Cobalt for Usc as Gas-Trtrbiric- the new program. Further tests with
Blade Material. variations in the combinations and
Although the tensile-strength and proportions of the constituents are ex-
thermal-shock tests were generally pected, to result in even more satisfac-
satisfactory, the results of the so-called tory ceramals for jet-engine turbinc
Quasi-Service Evaluation were of blades.
special interest. In phase 2, a total of As Abe Silverstein, the brilliant re-
12 hours and 13 minutes of operation search director of NACA’s Flight Pro-
were completed at turbinc speeds of pulsion Laboratory put it in the 12th
l0,OOO to 15,OOO rpm, and 2200’F. At .4nnual Wright Brothers Lecture,
the ends of this time, service failure Rescarcli on Aircraft Propulsiorr Sys-
had taken place in 108 metal blades frrrrs: “Research on ceramals may re-
(including four replacement and eight sult in a more fruitful and rapid de-
control blades) but only in one ceramal velopment of refractory materials than
blade. During the repeated shutdowns work 011 the pure metals.”
for metal blade replacements, one oi Some very recent tests as the Lewis
the ceramal blades was accidentally FPL, Cleveland indicate that the boys
broken .and a second underwent disk- xrc really on the right track.
dovetail failure. This simply indicatcs

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