

The BAE Systems Joint Light Tactical Vehicle  (Source: Courtesy of
Less costly manufacturing may put titanium in everyone's doors.






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RE: Bigger problem
By 91TTZ on 5/23/2008 8:10:10 PM , Rating: 2
Raw ore is about USD $0.35 per pound of resultant titanium. Processing is the big killer because it takes so much freaking energy to melt titanium, which is the normal method of making stuff out of it.

It's not going to take much more energy to melt titanium than it takes to melt steel. Steel is heavier and has more thermal mass, and its melting point is almost as high.

RE: Bigger problem
By masher2 (blog) on 5/24/2008 12:09:09 AM , Rating: 2
> "It's not going to take much more energy to melt titanium than it takes to melt steel."

The difference is that titanium is (currently) made in a multi-step process, which requires it to be heated and melted several times.

Titanium is also more expensive because iron can be reduced (the opposite of oxidized) by cheap carbon, whereas expensive magnesium is used to reduce titanium.

RE: Bigger problem
By Calin on 5/24/2008 2:21:06 AM , Rating: 2
But steel can be cold-forged, and you don't need to heat it much to hot-forge it (it loses strength quickly with temperature). On the other hand, titanium mantains strength into much higher temperatures, so you need to heat it real high to work it


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