Titanium history

[snuffle]

Not directly knife-related, but given the popularity of the metal in these parts I thought people might enjoy this article.

The Story of Titanium

The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust. By mass, there’s more titanium in the earth’s crust than carbon by a factor of nearly 30, and more titanium than copper by a factor of nearly 100. But despite its abundance, it's only recently that...

www.construction-physics.com

Like a lot of people here, I noodle about with amateur metalwork sometimes, and have read lots of posts from people frustrated with learning to machine it. Reading about the learning curve when nobody knew how to work with it is really interesting.

Titanium bolts that were heated had their heads pop off, a problem that was eventually traced to cadmium-coated wrenches used to tighten them. Titanium welds made in the summer unexpectedly failed, due to (it was eventually realized) chlorine that the local utility added to the water during the summer to prevent algae growth.

 

[NG VI]

It IS knife related!

 

[Arathol]

Thats got to be written at least in part by a chatbot. The article fails to mention some important things and makes it sound like the US was the driving force behind titanium and production was self sufficient.

In 1951, the materials advisory board projected the need for 30,000 tons of titanium products, but actual shipments were just 75 tons, barely enough for research applications...........

The US wasn't really making all that much titanium because rutile ore supplies were not available as it isn't found in large quantities in the US. The Soviet Union was the major supplier of rutile ore at the time, and as the Cold War was in full swing, they weren't going to be selling a lot of a potential strategic material to the US......

By 1958, Pratt and Whitney had produced 5000 jet engines with titanium components, and the US industry was producing thousands of tons of titanium products a year.

Not really.......When the A-12 / SR-71 program was ongoing, the Soviet Union was the only large scale source of rutile ore. To supply Lockheed with enough titanium to develop and build the aircraft, the CIA had to create a number of dummy corporations to purchase large quantities of Russian ore. So, the USSR supplied the critical materials needed to build the aircraft that would be spying on them for the rest of the Cold War......

 

[Danke42]

The USSR had so much Ti they were making shovels out of it.

 

[snuffle]

The article fails to mention some important things and makes it sound like the US was the driving force

Thanks for the corrective, love this site.

This all got me interested in the topic, and it dovetails with enough of my other interests that I'm going to have to look up more history here. Anyone know a good book? For some reason I'm suddenly less trusting of the references listed in that article.

 

[nickycat]

Anyone know a good book? For some reason I'm suddenly less trusting of the references listed in that article.

so glad to read someone say this...culture and government has for the most part eliminated the notion of TRUTH from the masses... in general, folks of today back to 75++ years simply can't or won't be bothered to seek primary sources of information. we must always DO THE RESEARCH and CONNECT THE DOTS, ourselves!