Titanium alloy sheets need to be produced using a cladding and laminating process!
Titanium alloy has excellent mechanical properties at room temperature and high temperature, excellent fatigue resistance and crack propagation resistance. It has been widely used in the manufacturing of pressure vessels on spacecraft and missiles, rocket engine shells, aircraft skins, ribs, webs, and other fields. It is an important material in the aerospace and aviation defense industries. Currently, the global demand for titanium alloy sheets is increasing. In the face of market demand, with the rapid development of the global aerospace industry and the application of new technologies such as superplastic forming and diffusion bonding of titanium alloy sheets, the demand for titanium alloy sheets at home and abroad is increasing.
At present, the production of titanium alloy thin plates in China still adopts the single sheet method for rolling. Due to the poor plasticity of titanium alloy at low temperature and large cold deformation work hardening, it is extremely difficult to use the single sheet method to produce thin plates. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the rolling process and reduce the temperature drop of the metal during the forging process, especially to reduce the surface quenching of the billet, the mold for forging titanium alloy needs to be preheated. Otherwise, the temperature drop and surface chilling of the metal will prevent the metal from filling the mold groove well and may lead to many cracks. The mold preheating system used for titanium alloy forging is usually detachable, but sometimes a heating device mounted on a press is also used. Removable mold heating systems are typically gas fired heaters that slowly heat the mold to the desired temperature range before the module is assembled into the forging equipment. The heating device fixed on the press usually adopts induction heating or resistance heating.
According to statistics, in the production of TC4 titanium plate, the intangible loss caused by alkali pickling and polishing is as high as about 3O%, the comprehensive yield is only about 35%, and the production cycle is long, with unstable performance. The deformation rate of its cold rolling degree shall not exceed 25%, and multiple cold rolling, intermediate annealing, and alkali pickling are required. In addition, process defects such as cracks, edge cracks, slag drop, and indentation are prone to occur during rolling. Production process of titanium alloy plate (below 1.0mm), titanium alloy cross rolling and β Key technologies in the primary flow finishing process include thermal processing, independently developed stack and clad rolling processes, titanium and titanium alloy warm rolling technology, and independently developed atmosphere protected controlled cooling gravity creep correction technology. In the experiment of a new process for TC4 sheet production, a 0.6mm thick TC4 sheet has been produced using the cladding and lamination process, and has now been put into batch production. AVSMA VSMPO of Russia, Active Metal Corporation (RMI) of the United States, and NKK Corporation of Japan all use the cladding and lamination process to produce titanium alloy sheets.
