Titanium alloys in Aerospace

Dr. Gurmail Singh Malhi

(PhD-Composite Coatings and Materials Characterization)

Asso. Prof. (Aerospace & Mechanical Engg)

Titanium alloys are used in airframe structures, landing gear components, and jet
engine parts for their unique combination of properties: moderate density, high
strengths, long fatigue life, fracture toughness, creep strength, and excellent
resistance to corrosion and oxidation.

Titanium alloys also have good mechanical performance at high temperature up

to 500 and 600 degrees Celsius, which is well above the operating temperature
limit of lightweight airspace materials, such as aluminum alloys, magnesium
alloys, and fiber polymer composites.

For this reason, when titanium alloys were originally used in aircraft in the early
'50s, it was for high temperature applications. The earliest use of titanium was in
compressor disks and fan blades for gas turbine engines, which require excellent
creep resistance at high operating temperature.

The use of titanium was important in the early development of jet engines, which
were originally built using heat resistant steels and nickel alloys.

Both steels and nickel alloys are heavy materials and their replacement with
titanium disks and blades reduced the weight of early jet engines by more than
200 kilograms.

Titanium has been an important engineering material in gas turbine engines for
more than 50 years. Currently, it accounts for 25-30 percent of the weight of most
modern engines.

The engine components made use in titanium are, fan blades, shafts and casing in
the inlet region, low pressure compressors, block and nozzle assemblies in the
exhaust section. Titanium is also used in engine frames, casings, manifolds, ducts,
and tubes. It is not possible to use titanium in all parts of the engine and it is
unsuitable within the combustion chamber and other sections where the
temperature exceeds 600 degrees Celsius. Above this temperature, titanium
rapidly softens, creeps, and oxidizes, and more heat resistant material such as
nickel alloys are required.

Titanium is also an important material for heavy-loaded airframe structures.

Titanium is used in a wide variety of structures on commercial aircraft, including
wind boxes, wings, and the carriage parts.

Titanium is used when it's high strength compared with aluminum, allows the
same load to be carried by a physically smallest structural part, even though there
is no weight advantage because of their higher density. Forged titanium is used in
airframes, requiring high strength and high toughness or when there is too little
airframe space for aluminum alloys.

For many years, steel has been used in aircraft landing gear because of its high
stiffness, strength, fatigue resistance, and toughness. However, high-strength
steels are susceptible to corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement, which is the
phenomenon whereby steel becomes very brittle owing to the absorption of
hydrogen. Titanium is used as a replacement material for steel in landing gear to
eliminate the problems of corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement, as well as to
achieve a significant weight saving. Aerospace is the single largest market for
titanium products, with the industry consuming about 80 percent of the global
production of the metal. The aerospace applications of titanium are
approximately of the following: jet engines for commercial aircraft, 37 percent,
Jet engines for military aircraft, 24 percent.

Airframes for commercial aircraft, 18 percent, Airframes for military aircraft, 12

percent, Rockets and spacecraft eight percent, and helicopters and armaments,
one percent.

Titanium accounts for a higher percentage of the structural mass of military

aircraft compared with commercial airliners in order to withstand the higher
airframe loads generated by extreme manual works during combat operations.
The structural mass of fighter aircraft made using titanium is often in the range of
10 or 30 percent. The components made using titanium range in size from highly
stressed wind structures, landing gear parts and tail section, down to small
fasteners, springs, and hydraulic tubing.

Titanium was also used in helicopters for the main rotor hub, tail rotor hub,
pivots, clamps, and blade tips which require high strength and fracture toughness.
Titanium alloys are also used in solid fuel and liquid fuel engines, high pressure
gas, and fuel storage tanks, and in some cases, the skin of rockets.

There are many benefits to using titanium in aircraft structures and engines.
Although, as with any material, there are some disadvantages. This table
compares the stiffness and strength of several types of titanium with that of other
aerospace structural materials. There are different classes of titanium which are
called commercially pure titanium, Alpha titanium, Beta titanium and Alpha plus
Beta titanium. The specific stiffness of titanium alloys is slightly lower than that of
other aerospace materials, so there is no benefit in using them in aircraft
structures designed for high stiffness. This strength of the titanium alloys varies
over a wide range. This is because the properties are dependent on the alloy
composition and heat treatment. However, the specific strength properties of
titanium alloys are superior to the other materials, except carbon-epoxy
composite. For this reason, they are good materials to use in aircraft structures
required to carry high loads, such as airframe components, and the carriage parts,
and wing boxes. Other benefits of using titanium include high strength, good
fatigue resistance, creep resistance at high temperature and excellent oxidation
resistance up to 600 degrees Celsius. Some types of titanium alloys can be joined
by welding or diffusion bonding thereby, reducing the need for mechanical
fasteners, bolts, screws, rivets, and adhesive bonding. That is a requirement for
each hardened aluminum assemblies. Titanium has better resistance to corrosion
than high strength aluminum alloys, including the most damaging forms such as
stress corrosions, cracking and exfoliation. Titanium has the ability to form a thin
oxide surface layer which is resistant and impervious to most corrosive agents and
which provides the material with excellent corrosion resistance. Titanium is used
as a replacement material for aluminum in aircraft structures when corrosion
resistance is the prime consideration. An important advantage of titanium alloys
over many other aerospace materials, particularly aluminum alloys and fiber
polymer composites, is high strengths at elevated temperature. Titanium was
often selected for use at temperatures too high for aluminum or composite
materials, but where the temperatures or loads do not dictate the use of steel or
nickel superalloys if weight is a key consideration. This figure shows the effect of
temperature on the yield strength of two titanium alloys used in gas turbine
engines. Thus in strength with increase in temperature for an aluminum alloy is
shown for comparison. The strength of titanium drops gradually with increase in
temperature and adequate strength is retained to 500 or 600 degrees Celsius. It is
for this reason, together with excellent resistance to creep and oxidation that
titanium is used in gas turbine engines and other high temperature applications.
Disadvantages of using titanium include relatively high density, 4.5 gram per cubic
centimeter compared with aluminum alloys, 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter and
carbon-epoxy composites, 1.5-2 gram per cubic centimeter. However, it is lighter
than nickel super alloys, 8.7 grams per cubic centimeter when used in jet engines.
Titanium is difficult to machine and requires specialist material removal processes
such as laser assistant machining to produce aircraft components free of
machining damage. A major disadvantage of titanium is the high cost, which
varies with the usual price fluctuations. In the global model commodity market,
the raw material cost is typically $10,000, $12,000 per ton. The high cost is the
result of the expansive process used to extract titanium from its ore together with
the costly processes used in fabrication and shaping the metal into aerospace
components.