What is the difference between titanium steel, pure titanium, and titanium alloy? We will briefly explain it today.

The name titanium steel is not a standard academic name, but a commercial name. Because the corrosion resistance and acid and alkali resistance of 316L stainless steel are better than that of general stainless steel, the standard grade is 022Cr17Ni12Mo2, which mainly contains Cr, Ni, Mo, and the number indicates the approximate percentage contained.

It can be seen that titanium steel is titanium free, and its main component is still iron. This commercial name is in order to distinguish from other stainless steel when used as jewelry, and obtain a higher value. In fact, the cost and corrosion resistance of 316L stainless steel is indeed better than that of common stainless steel.

What can really be called titanium is generally two categories, one is pure titanium and the other is titanium alloy.

The highest titanium content is just made of titanium sponge, from titanium tetrachloride reduced by magnesium, it is like this:

Loose and porous, very low strength, can not be used directly as titanium, is the most upstream material of titanium, after melting, forging, rolling, processing into a variety of shapes of plates, wires, tubes and so on.

The titanium content of titanium sponge is close to 100%. However, titanium is too active, and it is easy to react with oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and so on in the air, so complete 100% purity is almost impossible.

In general, titanium content is higher than 95%, for industrial pure titanium. Pure titanium is divided into TA1-TA4 according to the different titanium content and impurity content. We usually more common are TA1 and TA2. Impurities are mainly oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, iron and so on. The higher the titanium content, the softer it is, the lower the strength we say, but the better its toughness.

Therefore, when we make titanium belt buckle and titanium jewelry, TA1 material will be used in places where the force is not strong, and TA2 material will be used for shafts and small screws.

When we do pure titanium cups, we can not use TA2, the higher the purity, the better, especially the hydrogen content must be low, otherwise because the toughness is not enough, it is easy to crack, or there is a more obvious, a stretch of lines, or pitting, the scrap rate will be quite high.

Titanium alloy, as the name suggests, is an alloy formed by titanium and other metals and non-metals. These metals and non-metals such as aluminum, molybdenum, vanadium, chromium, iron, zirconium, tin, oxygen, carbon, etc. Titanium alloy is divided into TA, TB and TC series according to the different metallographic structure. We don't go into that here.

Taking the most commonly used TC4 titanium alloy as an example, its titanium content is 90%, aluminum 6%, vanadium 4%, so it is also called titanium 6 aluminum 4 vanadium. TC4 titanium alloy is the world's earliest development, the most widely used titanium alloy, is also the earliest used in medical titanium alloy, its output accounts for about half of the world's total production of various titanium alloy products, in the aerospace industry is more than 80%. It has high corrosion resistance, strength is higher than pure titanium, toughness is good, processing and welding is relatively easy, so the comprehensive performance is very good, and also like pure titanium is not allergic.

Is it pure titanium or titanium alloy?

This is not conclusive, different materials are suitable for different products, generally speaking, excluding factors such as shape, the material cost of titanium alloy is higher than pure titanium. Of course, the titanium alloy here is a regular grade, which is based on titanium to add other metals and non-metals, rather than adding a little titanium in other metals, and containing a little titanium as titanium alloy.