2070 – 07 – Titanium Alloys

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Titanium is one of the most recently developed commercial metals. It only became available to manufacturers in 1948. Titanium is both strong and lightweight, giving it fantastic strength-to-weight ratio. It also develops a thin oxide coating, which resists corrosion. Pure titanium will burn when in direct contact with air at high temperatures, which is why it is used in fireworks.

Titanium alloys are best suited for aerospace applications because of their positive attributes. They have a low coefficient of thermal expansion, which means they don’t change on their own at higher temperatures.

Unfortunately titanium is very expensive to manufacture, as it takes a lot of energy to produce – ten times the amount of energy necessary to produce steel.