Titanium turning and milling - a difficult task
Producing turned and milled parts from titanium is a demanding task that requires a great deal of experience and know-how. The challenges of machining titanium on turning and milling machines arise from the special properties of the material.
What is titanium?
Titanium is a metal that occurs in the earth's crust. It is usually counted among the light metals. Titanium is one of the most common metals found in the earth's crust. However, it hardly ever occurs in its pure form. It is usually mined in mineral compounds in the form of alloys. The titanium concentrations are often very low. The extraction of the metal is very complex and extremely energy-intensive. This circumstance makes titanium an expensive and valuable metal.
Titanium alloys: Hard or soft, the alloy is decisive
Pure titanium not only occurs extremely rarely in nature, it is also plastically deformable. The use of alloying additives makes titanium very strong while maintaining a low density. Therefore, titanium is mostly used in the form of machinable alloys. The composition of the alloys determines the material properties. Titanium alloys are always used when low weight, high strength and high corrosion resistance are required. Titanium alloys are often classified as Grade 1 to Grade 39 according to the American ASTM standard. Grade 1 through Grade 4 denotes pure titanium of various purities. Grade 5 is the most commonly used titanium alloy, used for example in industry and aerospace.
What special properties does titanium have?
Titanium is a noble and high-quality material. It is a very light metal, but very strong. Titanium is about 40% lighter than steel. However, depending on the alloy, titanium can approach high-strength steel in terms of strength. Compared to aluminum, titanium is the heavier material, but much more tensile and stable. This combination - light and tensile strength - makes the material interesting for many special applications.
The properties of the material titanium:
- low weight
- high tensile strength
- high stability
- corrosion resistant
- antimagnetic
- high biocompatibility (compatibility in the body)
Challenges in machining titanium turned parts and titanium milled parts
Titanium is not only expensive to extract, but also difficult to machine. A great deal of experience is required, especially for machining operations such as turning and milling. One of the challenges is titanium's tendency to work harden. The material becomes denser as it is deformed, making it stronger and harder to machine. Work hardening causes more force to be applied to the material as it is machined. In addition, machining changes the properties of the material. Only an experienced machinist can produce the right combination of the desired properties of elasticity and tensile strength. Other challenges include the formation of very long chips and the associated difficult chip breaking when turning titanium or titanium alloy workpieces.
What must be considered for the machining tools for titanium milled and turned parts?
Only a few tools are suitable for machining titanium. The tools must have an even higher hardness than the titanium alloys. The material properties put the machining tools to a tough test. The properties of the turning and milling tools, such as hardness and coating, are extremely important for precise results. Combined with the right machining parameters such as feed rate, speed, cooling and lubrication, experts produce high-quality precision parts from a wide variety of titanium alloys.
Where are titanium turned and milled parts used?
Due to its high biocompatibility (very good compatibility in the body), titanium is often used in medicine, e.g. for implants. Properties such as the low weight, high strength of titanium alloys and high corrosion resistance are used in the aerospace and defense industries.
Main application areas of titanium turned parts, titanium milled parts and the material titanium
- Medical technology (implants, dental implants, endoprostheses in orthopedic technology)
- Aerospace industry
- automotive engineering
- Shipping industry
- Industry
- Metrology
Titanium products - components for medical technology
- Titanium bone screws
- Titanium intramedullary nails
- bone plates
- Components and parts for prostheses
- Spinal implants
- port systems
- Components for blood pumps
- Dental implants
Beutter is the specialist for titanium turned parts, titanium milled parts and the machining of titanium in small series with a high vertical range of manufacture.
Many years of experience in developing solutions for customers.
We support you from parts and production planning to the finished product. In doing so, we assume overall responsibility for all process steps: In addition to machining processes, this also includes, for example, laser machining and galvanic processes such as colored anodizing.
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