A typical billet made of titanium is fragile. This property is the result of solid state composition homogenization in the feedstock mould capsule. Crushing processes such as milling, mechanical alloying, and pulverizing are used to crush these billets into powder. Spheroidization is another method to produce these billets. Here, the titanium atoms are mixed with another metal to produce titanium dioxide powder. It is an effective way to produce titanium alloys for engineering applications.
The current standard procedure for the production of titanium alloy billets involves the use of a special process called forging. The process begins with the fines of titanium sponge. After the billets have been machined, the titanium ingots are covered in a protective glaze. This prevents the metal from reacting with the surrounding atmosphere. This process allows the desired microstructure to develop. Another method of modifying the titanium alloy is heat treatment, which allows the metal to change its compositions, sizes, and distributions.
In a typical process, the
titanium billet undergoes two passes of TE. The first pass of TE forms a billet with a cross-sectional area of less than 16 inch2. The second pass is more than five times thinner. After two passes of TE, the mechanical properties of the billets become nearly homogenous. The mixing effect and saturation effect can explain this. Warm TE results in the formation of high plasticity and strength properties. The yield stress increased by about 60%, while the area remained unchanged.
