How 3D printing titanium can supercharge the US Economy

The use of titanium and its alloys in engineering aerospace, medical, automotive and consumer products has grown thanks to the material’s fortuitous blend of properties. Titanium offers similar strength to steel with half the weight, corrosion resistance, and excellent formability and weldability. The traditional method of manufacturing titanium alloys (retrieval of the metal from its ore) is a highly energy intensive (and therefore expensive) process. First carbo-chlorination from imported rutile ore is used to produce TiCl4 (titanium tetrachloride) which is then reduced with liquid magnesium in a batch-process called the Kroll process, which consists of reduction then vacuum distillation (VDP) that eventually produces huge vessels that contain rough titanium sponge. Dr. Kroll invented this process in the late 1930s, and as an industry, we simply haven’t moved on from this process. The titanium sponge isn’t in a state to be useful; we discard the first inch of material that was in contact with the vessel walls and send this to the ferro-ti industry for steel making. The rough sponge must be crushed up, then combined with “master alloys” to produce electrodes in the composition required, Ti-6Al-4V for example, the electrodes are melted at least twice or even 3 times to eventually produce 10,000lb+ ingots. The ingots are still not in a usable state – they must be forged or rolled down to intermediate slab or billet. The intermediate product must be forged or rolled to mill products (plate, sheet, billet and bar), or casting stock, or at this point, diverted to produce powder for 3D printing.

?Supply Chain Risks and 3D Printing Benefits

In a time of constrained supply chains, it is dismaying to discover that the United States no longer has domestic sponge-producing in process and must rely on imported sponge from overseas sources. The good news is that learning to 3D print titanium in some circumstances can allow part manufacturers to skip over the traditional processing of mill product and go straight to powder for additive manufacturing. The use of 3D printing, where it makes sense, can also allow us to free ourselves (eventually) from the reliance on imported sponge. Titanium has excellent recyclability and the domestic supply chain is working furiously hard on utilizing low-grade domestically occurring titanium ores as well as improving yield and quality in the production of low-cost titanium powder, as demonstrated by IperionX [1].

How 3D Printing titanium affects the Economy

For the future of the U.S. economy, increasing the amount of titanium applications will allow even more innovation in design and manufacturing. In the medical industry, we are already seeing point-of-care printing where clinicians can improve patient healthcare using tailored 3D printed specific implants. The patient quality of life is improved with decreased leadtime to wait for their implants as their procedures can be done faster. In commercial aerospace, titanium has completely displaced steel in turbine engines, but as we push more towards supersonic aircraft, the high temperature resistant alloys such as Ti-6242 (high temperature for titanium being 1100-1200°F) are going become more popular, possibly even rivalling the ubiquitous Ti-6-4. Space exploration driven by aggressively forward-thinking private companies are already utilizing 3D printed components. Whatever the grades, I believe it will be automated 3D printing and smart manufacturing of titanium that will supercharge the U.S. economy.

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Reference:

1.???“Hyperion, Blacksand Alliance looks to create titanium powders for additive manufacturing” in Titanium Today, Qtr 2021 (https://issuu.com/titaniumtoday/docs/titaniumtoday_q4_020622/s/14759090)