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There has to be a better way to make titanium

orcasciences.com

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Re: There has to be a better way to make titanium

#11

Post by nocoiner »

kerkeslager wrote: post #9
nocoiner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t there also some issue with water when the A-12 or SR-71 was being built? Like the local water treatment plant started fluoridating the water or something, and it completely screwed up the production process?

"Completely screwed up the production process" seems a bit overstatement: with the budgets at stake for these projects, adding a distillation step to the water isn't some massive financial burden.

Fair enough! I think the primary issue was that for a while, no one had any idea why previous processes just stopped working. But my recollection of this is obviously hazy at best.

Re: There has to be a better way to make titanium

#12

Post by Grosvenor »

nocoiner wrote: post #6
cenamus wrote: post #2

The work hardening when machining titanium is also just brutal, worse than stainless

Wasn’t there also some issue with water when the A-12 or SR-71 was being built? Like the local water treatment plant started fluoridating the water or something, and it completely screwed up the production process?

Yes. They had to scrap tons of parts until they figured it out.

iirc they had to add the impurity back IN to get the process working again.

Re: There has to be a better way to make titanium

#14

Post by IAmBroom »

Weirdest thing I know about titanium: it acts as a sponge for hydrogen, to the extent that H will knock Ti atoms out of the material until it becomes friable.

This is never observed in ordinary usage, because titanium dioxide forms SO DAMN QUICKLY, and completely blocks absorption of H.

Source: a series of failed parts inside a high vacuum device (chip photolitho).

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