TC4 titanium alloy sheet production cost control method
More than 50% of the titanium alloy produced in the world are TC4 titanium alloy, and in the application of aerospace industry, the use of TC4 titanium alloy accounts for more than 80%. TC4 titanium alloy has become the world's all grades of titanium alloy specifications of the more complete, the largest industrial international titanium alloy. However, cost issues have limited its widespread use. All countries in the world, especially the United States, Japan, Russia and China, are actively looking for ways and techniques to reduce the cost. The cost of titanium alloy depends mainly on the cost of raw materials and melting, processing costs. In order to reduce costs, on the one hand, the use of cheap elements to reduce the cost of raw materials; the other hand, improves the production process, reduce melting and processing costs.
At present, the world's titanium sponge are used Kroll method, there is no viable low cost production methods to replace the method, therefore, sponge titanium production technology without major breakthroughs, only through the use of inexpensive alloying elements difficult to make Titanium alloy costs significantly lower. However, titanium alloy production process, due to cutting, trimming, surface cleaning and other processing needs, will develop a large amount of return material. As the cost of titanium alloy return only some screening, crushing, cleaning the additional costs, less than one-third of the cost of titanium sponge. If you can be a lot of use of the return material in the alloy preparation process, you can significantly reduce costs. In the cost structure of the titanium alloy sheet prepared by the conventional production process, the cost of sponge titanium accounts for about 40% of the total cost, the cost of the alloying element accounts for only 6.7% of the total cost, the cost of smelting and deformation accounts for about 20% of the total cost and about 26% %. Therefore, reducing the cost of raw materials and shorten the process is an effective way to decrease the cost of titanium alloy. In addition, the frequently used titanium alloy smelting process is vacuum consumable arc melting (VAR), the use of the process requires pre-pressed electrodes. In order to ensure the strength of the electrode, the return material can only be added to the electrode in a small amount, the recycling rate is limited, and the effect of decreasing the cost is limited. The growing maturity of the electron beam cooled bed melting (EBCHM) technology provides an important technical approach for the low cost production of titanium alloys. EBCHM has the following advantages:
1) to better eliminate high and low density inclusions, access to uniform ingot organization;
2) return material can be used 100%, while VARs producing Ti-6Al-4V alloy can only use 30% or less of the return material;
3) can be a melting ingot;
4) can produce slab, decrease the amount of subsequent processing. In this study, instead of the traditional VAR. EBCHM was used to produce TC4 titanium alloy slab by single-pass melting with a large amount of return material. After slab surface treatment, the slab was directly diced and rolled to prepare 8mm thick TC4 titanium alloy plates. The manufacturing costs of VAR and EBCHM ingot preparation sheets were compared.
More than 50% of the titanium alloy produced in the world are TC4 titanium alloy, and in the application of aerospace industry, the use of TC4 titanium alloy accounts for more than 80%. TC4 titanium alloy has become the world's all grades of titanium alloy specifications of the more complete, the largest industrial international titanium alloy. However, cost issues have limited its widespread use. All countries in the world, especially the United States, Japan, Russia and China, are actively looking for ways and techniques to reduce the cost. The cost of titanium alloy depends mainly on the cost of raw materials and melting, processing costs. In order to reduce costs, on the one hand, the use of cheap elements to reduce the cost of raw materials; the other hand, improves the production process, reduce melting and processing costs.
At present, the world's titanium sponge are used Kroll method, there is no viable low cost production methods to replace the method, therefore, sponge titanium production technology without major breakthroughs, only through the use of inexpensive alloying elements difficult to make Titanium alloy costs significantly lower. However, titanium alloy production process, due to cutting, trimming, surface cleaning and other processing needs, will develop a large amount of return material. As the cost of titanium alloy return only some screening, crushing, cleaning the additional costs, less than one-third of the cost of titanium sponge. If you can be a lot of use of the return material in the alloy preparation process, you can significantly reduce costs. In the cost structure of the titanium alloy sheet prepared by the conventional production process, the cost of sponge titanium accounts for about 40% of the total cost, the cost of the alloying element accounts for only 6.7% of the total cost, the cost of smelting and deformation accounts for about 20% of the total cost and about 26% %. Therefore, reducing the cost of raw materials and shorten the process is an effective way to decrease the cost of titanium alloy. In addition, the frequently used titanium alloy smelting process is vacuum consumable arc melting (VAR), the use of the process requires pre-pressed electrodes. In order to ensure the strength of the electrode, the return material can only be added to the electrode in a small amount, the recycling rate is limited, and the effect of decreasing the cost is limited. The growing maturity of the electron beam cooled bed melting (EBCHM) technology provides an important technical approach for the low cost production of titanium alloys. EBCHM has the following advantages:
1) to better eliminate high and low density inclusions, access to uniform ingot organization;
2) return material can be used 100%, while VARs producing Ti-6Al-4V alloy can only use 30% or less of the return material;
3) can be a melting ingot;
4) can produce slab, decrease the amount of subsequent processing. In this study, instead of the traditional VAR. EBCHM was used to produce TC4 titanium alloy slab by single-pass melting with a large amount of return material. After slab surface treatment, the slab was directly diced and rolled to prepare 8mm thick TC4 titanium alloy plates. The manufacturing costs of VAR and EBCHM ingot preparation sheets were compared.
